Surrender–a Path to Freedom and Peace

When Your Desires Aren’t Met, Finding a Path to Freedom and Peace

by Hadassah Treu

When Your Desires Aren’t Met

Have you had such a strong, burning desire in your heart that had nearly consumed you? I had such a desire in my 30ties. 

Pleading, demanding, crying, praying for guidance, fasting, and declaring Bible verses. Nothing helped. God denied the granting of my desire to become a mother. 

Year after year, I was wrestling with Him. I didn’t realize that my insistence to have it my way poisoned my relationship with God with suppressed anger and disappointment. 

Why was God giving freely to other people the very thing I was asking Him to do for me and my husband day after day? Why didn’t He reward my obedience, my desire to walk in His ways, and do the right things in His eyes? 

Somehow, my unfulfilled desire which I held frantically had perverted my thinking into an entitlement mindset. 

I thought that if I did the right things, pleasing God and following a set of rules, He would always give me what I wanted; it was a kind of unspoken deal. 

“Lord, I am doing everything You want and expect for me. In return, I expect You to do everything I want.” 

Ouch!

The Bitter Fruits of Entitlement 

God was not my genie in a bottle and I was not to obey Him as a means of manipulating Him. I proudly believe it is up to me to do everything possible to make God grant my wish and answer my prayer as I wanted. 

No wonder this struggle between me and God was slowly killing me. Here is what I reaped as a result: 

• Losing my peace and joy 
• Anxiety disorder 
• Panic attacks 
• Autoimmune disorder 
• No energy for other activities  
• Disturbed relationship with the Lord 

Sounds awful, doesn’t it? And it was awful. 

At my deepest, lowest, and weakest point, finally, I was ready to humble myself and raise the white flag of surrender. I wish I could have done it earlier. 

Releasing Controlling Desires and Rights to God 

One important instrument that helped me to release my controlling desire and accept God’s will for my life was the book “Uprooting Anger” by Robert D. Jones. God opened my eyes to many truths through this book. He showed me my misconceptions about my rights, needs, desires, and entitlement problems. 

The truth that God is not obliged to fulfill my desires or so-called rights is transformational. God has promised to meet our needs, but many of our rights are not genuine needs. For example, the right to fair treatment, good health, the right to a loving husband, and the right to achievement of our personal hopes and expectations.

God Didn’t Promise Us Our Desires

God didn’t promise us the fulfillment of our desires, nor did He guarantee our rights (what we think we deserve). He promises that in Christ, He satisfies the genuine needs and longings of the heart. These are the needs of unconditional love, acceptance, safety, security, value and significance, life, peace, joy, meaning, and purpose. When we look for other ways to satisfy these primary needs, including by fulfilling certain desires, we leave His way and provision. 

More than this, God calls us to humble ourselves and submit our rights, following the example of Jesus. 

“In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!” (Philippians 2:5-8 NIV)

Releasing our rights, desires, and will to God is painful because this means we die to ourselves so we can live for God and His will. 

Surrender – a Path to Freedom and Peace 

In my struggle, I needed to let God be God, wrapping my heart around the truth that God’s way was always to do what was best for me, not only temporarily, but also for eternity. 

God’s way always kills our self-centeredness and glorifies Him. 

My path forward was clear, marked by repentance, forgiveness, and acceptance of facts and circumstances, of my physical limitations, and embracing God’s will for my life. I bowed my head before my Creator, choosing to trust Him as the ultimate Satisfier and Giver. 

No more staring at me, mine, and my… I wanted to stare at Him again, getting out of the drive to build my little world on my terms and vision.

God honored my surrender and restored my spiritual, emotional, and physical health, blessing me with this wonderful fruit: 

• Peace and acceptance 
• Humility 
• Restored joy and purpose 
• Healing from anxiety disorder and panic attacks 
• Restored energy and vision 
• The birth of new dreams 
• The birth of my writing ministry 

Releasing my desire to be a biological mother was the most difficult and most liberating thing I ever did. 

What do you need to release to God today? 

If you want to learn more about how God used my struggle with infertility and other painful experiences to transform and bless me, my book, “Draw Near: How Painful Experiences Become the Birthplace of Blessings,” is for you. You can read the first chapter of her book here.

——-

Meet Hadassah 

HADASSAH TREU is an international writer, blogger at onthewaybg.com, poet, speaker, and author of “Draw Near: How Painful Experiences Become the Birthplace of Blessings.” She is passionate about encouraging people to keep their faith in the dark valleys of life. Hadassah is a contributing writer to several faith-based platforms like Proverbs 31 Ministries Compel blog, and a dozen award-winning devotional and poetry anthologies, and she has been featured on many popular sites and podcasts. 

Links: 

Website: https://onthewaybg.com 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/onthewaybg 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hadassahtreu 

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/onthewaybg 

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@hadassahtreu-author 

Subscribe to her Newsletter: https://subscribepage.io/joinmycommunity 

• Letting Go of Control
• Don’t Get Your Tinsel In A Tangle
• Freed from the Spirit of Anger
• Love Never Fails
• Between “The Rock” and a Hard Place

Interested in Sharing Your Story?

The submission guidelines can be found here. We look forward to hearing your story.