Month: June 2026

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A desire is not validation nor is it endorsement

Scriptural references: (2 Samuel 7:1–17; 1 Chronicles 22)

David has a strong, sustained, desire to build God a house. He is grieved that he dwells in cedar while the ark dwells in a tent. Nathan initially endorses the desire: “Go, do all that is in your heart, for God is with you” (2 Samuel 7:3). David has the resources, the organizational capacity, the administrative infrastructure and  genuine devotion.

Surprisingly, God’s answer was no. It was not due to the desire being wrong or the temple being unnecessary but due to David’s history of bloodshed. Although imperetive for Israel’s security, it disqualified him for this particular assignment. The Prophet Nathan returned to correct what he had told him before.

What David’s Case Establishes

Every external marker said yes to David’s desire:

  • The desire was not impulsive
  • The desire was noble, godly, oriented towards God’s glory
  • The desire was initially prophetically confirmed
  • The man holding the desire was genuinely devoted
  • He had the wherewithal to execute this desire

Yet, God said not you. This means that no combination of duration, nobility, prophetic encouragement, personal devotion, and wherewithal constitutes divine authorization. All of those factors can be evident simultaneously and the answer can still be no, or not you or not yet — or this is accurate however I have someone else assigned to it. And the Lord did; that person was his son, Solomon. 

Therefore, a desire is not validation or endorsement; it is but data that requires submission and vetting by the Lord, not a conclusion to act upon.
David’s story also thwarts the teaching that all desires in our hearts are a signal from the Lord of our purpose or assignment and we are to pursue them.

David’s mature response

David did not argue nor did he invoke his pure intention. He sat before the Lord in (2 Samuel 7:18–29) and prayed “Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house, that you have brought me this far?”

The Lord’s redirection

He received the no and he redirected his energy towards preparation rather than construction. He gathered materials, organized the Levitical orders, and handed Solomon everything that was required. Evidently, his love for the project did not disappear, rather, it was submitted and redirected into a form God could utilize.

Furthermore, in that season of submitted waiting, David wrote the Psalms, which became the prayer book of the entire people of God across three thousand years. Not being chosen to build the temple did not equate to rejection, he had his own assignment.

The Questions That Must Precede Action

  • A burning, sustained, recurring desire is worth paying significant attention to; it may be pointing toward something real. But the next step is not execution, the next step is examination. These are the questions that must be brought before God:
  • Lord, is this desire from You?
  • Is this Your assignment for me or is this a mere attraction to something good?
  • Is the timing now, or am I carrying something meant for a future season?
  • Am I the vessel for this, or am I called to prepare the ground for someone else?
  • Is a prophetic word or voice of correction being evaded in my pursuit of this?
  • David’s answer to those questions, had he asked them fully, would have been: the desire is from Me, the temple is real, but you are the preparer not the builder. That is not a rejection; it is a precise assignment within the larger purpose.

There lies heart-wrenching, detrimental repercussions in pursuing unsubmitted, unvetted desires

  • The enemy utilizes them to crush our faith. When we pursue what is not in God’s will for us to do or what we are not even gifted to do or undertake an assignment out of season, it may not prosper. That causes our faith to dwindle, giving the enemy room to work. We are then left feeling rejected and dismayed.
  • Individuals may not even partner in the good work we are doing, leaving us with a barrage of questions for the Lord
  • The enemy can also utilize it to displace faith with fear so that the faith required for this assignment 20 years from now will be absent.
  • Desire alone cannot sustain anyone where wisdom is required. The Lord may need to teach us how to operate in that assignment ahead of time, and the desire may be a signal of what lies ahead, not of what should be pursued now.
  • The early Apostles experienced this. They prayed for the epileptic boy and failed to get him delivered. Unbeknownst to them, that kind required prayer and fasting. Had they possessed this knowledge, their session would have yielded the desired result.
  • At times, assignments do not prosper due to this fact and individuals become despondent, forego it entirely, whereas the endeavor failed due to reasons stated above. The enemy spoils us of our purpose with this strategy. Do not be swift to discard what failed. It is time for us to reevaluate our steps and seek the Lord concerning these issues.

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The heart

We are exhorted to guard our hearts for out of it flows the affairs of life (Prov 4:23).

The heart is the primary organ of communion with God; the faculty through which the believer knows, loves and responds to Him.
It is therefore no arbitrary target; the adversary directs his most sustained assault precisely here, seeking to disfigure and contort the believer’s perception of God. This is why the enemy aims to sever the connection we have with the Lord, utilizing our hearts as his target to accomplish his goal. He seeks to give us a distorted view of God- whether as indifferent, harsh, unreliable or as distant so that our hearts disengage from fellowship with Him.The consequence is a believer feeling that since the Lord is aloof and indifferent, they will cease seeking His face.

Questions to ask ourselves

  • Is my heart still seeing Him accurately?
  • Is my heart still responsive to Him?
  • Am I still making melodies to him in my heart? Lifting songs of praise and adoration with thanksgiving or have I permitted silence to inhabit the corridors of my heart?
  • Is my heart tender or has it grown callous due to my circumstances?
  • Does my heart genuinely love Him or is it seeking Him in a disengaged state?
  • Does my heart long for Him and seek to be satisfied by Him or are the pleasures of this world well able to satiate me?
  • Is my heart submitting to Him and His Word or do I still claim self-governance?
  • Do I seek for the meditations of my heart to be pleasing to Him?
  • Am I meditating on his Word?
  • What has my attention? Does the world have my focus more than His Word?
  • Am I guarding my heart from the influence of the world?
  • Is the Word still alive in my heart?
  • Do I still find His Word more edifying than my intellectual pursuits or entertainment?
  • Do the things of the Lord command my affection and attention with more urgency than the things of this realm?

Where the honest answers reveal deficiency, may we all not despair but turn. The Spirit who convicts is the same Spirit who restores.

What we give ourselves matters. We fail to realize that when we received salvation we were enlisted into a life of being transformed into the image of Christ. Thus, what we give our attention to will either contribute positively or negatively to that process. When we read the Word, the Holy Ghost transforms us. His light penetrates our hearts, for He sows the seed of the Word in our hearts. We can choke this seed by how we order our lives, thus stifling the potential of the Word that was planted. Furthermore, when we are taught about holiness and the preceding action we make is to watch a program that is contrary to what we just read, we display self-contradiction and either a lack of understanding or ignorance. We read about how the Lord says to get the filthy or foul language out of our mouths yet once we close our Bibles, we unwittingly watch a series that has characters incorporating foul language in their speech, surround ourselves with friends and listen to music that does likewise, and we wonder why we cannot abandon foul speech despite our efforts of daily communion with the Lord.

Moreover, we claim that we do not practice any witchcraft yet we watch entertainment that practices it. We claim sexual continence, yet we watch shows that display nude scenes or sexually explicit content. No one takes a bath and immediately goes to sully themselves by rolling in mud yet we do this each time we wash in the water of the Word and entertain the filth of this world.

A call to guard the heart

Guard the heart, therefore, with the diligence that its dignity demands; for it is the seat of life, the organ of communion, and the ground in which the Word of God either flourishes or is suppressed. What is planted there determines what is produced; and what is produced will ultimately declare, with clarity, what we have in truth given ourselves to.

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Beware of the attack on self- control

The system of this world is designed to lower man’s defenses against sin and to corrupt him through lust (2 Peter 1:4). Sin corrupted us in such a way that, when we are wronged, we desire revenge or succumb to bitterness and unforgiveness. Additionally, if someone does not like us we do not like them either. Sadly, we become a product of what transpires to us and we are controlled by external circumstances. Moreover, we may be exposed to something unintentionally and fail to look away. When our eyes behold the forbidden, excuses are made to indulge in it instead of looking away. We therefore normalize it, failing to realize that we have relinquished our power.

God holds man to a higher standard

Every human being is cognizant of the fact that we are called to live to a higher standard by God. Certain behaviors are acceptable in animals however they are unbecoming to us. Yet, we observe individuals resorting to bestial, brutish behaviors. Evidently, the fall corrupted man.

A constant state of trading

Imdividuals fail to recognize that we are in a state of trading, and we should exercise caution so as not to trade what is valuable for the pleasurable and fleeting.
Esau failed this test and traded his birthright for a meal. The trade-off continues in our contemporary time.

Contemporary instruments intended for the demise of self-control

Things we have normalized are instruments masterfully orchestrated to erode our sense of self-control. We are bombarded with false narratives on social media to sway us into specific paradigms and thinking patterns. Following that, this world makes provision for perversion. Our autonomy is taken away by stealth as we are inundated with a constant flow of information and data. To a considerable degree, we catastrophically forego the ability to think according to the Word and maintain faith, a consequence of daily exposure to fear-mongering. This world teaches men about toxic masculinity. It trains them to act beside their God-given design, to exert a position of superiority over women, be promiscuous and misogynistic. Likewise, women are trained the defiled, ungodly way of feminism and conditioned to think that they can do whatever it is a man can do, if not better. They are tutored on misandry; the hatred of men, to disrespect and see them as undeserving of honor. Competition between genders is taught by this world and individuals easily acquiesce to the curriculum.

Social media is another instrument of destruction. Individuals are exposed to content that lowers attention span, breeds not only competition, discontent, unrealistic expectations, a false reality and insecurity but also doom scrolling. When one doom scrolls, they don’t realize that what is transpiring is that they are in a state of loss of self-control. They scroll uncontrollably, and it is as though the brakes of the car have ceased to function. Unbeknownst to them, that was the aim. Indeed, we are in a perennial state of conditioning by this world. It is quite effortless to get entangled in this when one lives life without discernment and vigilance.

The call for self-government and control

Paul says “I put my body under”. It is our responsibility to put our body under subjection so that nothing rules over us; no habit, practice, substance or demon should possess control over us. Emphatically, the Lord Himself does not control us, He calls us to submit and be led by Him. Submission is when a person can do something yet they yield to the desire of another. The Lord does not take away our agency or volition, He simply asks us to yield. It is a choice He does not take away.

The fruit of the Spirit

The Lord, through the fruit of the Spirit seeks to restore man’s inherent power. The fruit of the Spirit of self-control is much needed in this modern day where darkness is increasing and righteousness is becoming an obsolete practice. Self-control restores power and control to us. It is likened to granting someone keys. With self-control, we are equipped to withstand the prevailing pressures of this age, maintain our moral compass and remain pure. We are undeniably catapulted from a position of helplessness to one of empowerment. We cease to be enslaved and become like rulers.
The Lord through the fruit of self-control rebuilds the broken walls eroded by this world’s “delicacies”, our lack of diligence and failed vigilance.

Better to be patient than powerful; better to have self-control than to conquer a city. Proverbs 16:32

A person without self-control is like a city with broken-down walls. Proverbs 25:28

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An overlooked sign of maturity

An overlooked sign of maturity is cleaving to God. Mature sons of God cleave and are utterly dependent on the Lord. They are likened to kangaroos that never outgrow the pouch, to babies that are never weaned from the breast. When faced with a myriad of responsibilities, they find ways to cleave tighter; they have no reason not to pray or seek His face.

Maturity has not caused them to be independent of the Lord, on the contrary, it has opened their eyes to their utmost need of Him. Cleaving tighter, praying constantly, building a life around the Lord instead of squeezing Him into a life that is bursting at the seams. They value His step-by-step involvement and nearness. They find distractions to be offensive thus they guard against them like soldiers warding off enemy troops. They are infatuated with Him and desire nothing in this world more than Him. He is irreplaceable to them.
Therefore, true maturity is never merely about uttering mysteries but about finally fully awakening to complete dependence on The Lord.

Children are incapable of appreciating invaluable possessions. In instances where an expensive toy is bought for them or they are given the latest cellphone, they can destroy it the same week if not on the same day. Likewise, babes in Christ do not cleave as the mature do. They feel that praying for 15minutes a day will suffice. They value distractions more than His presence. Surprisingly, hours can be effortlessly spent on hobbies or even real responsibilities; however, time with the Lord cannot be carved out. If they occupy a level of responsibility, they cling to it and forfeit time with the Lord. Furthermore, they are very independent. Leaning on the Lord feels like a liability or it isn’t a necessity; it is optional.

When we live self-sufficient lives, we practice a counterfeit Christianity. The true version of the faith breaks our independence, forcing us to lean, depend, and recognize that we are utterly nothing without Him. It is one where failure is guaranteed when independence and self-sufficiency are at the wheel.
The Word has to bring us to this destination, where we often fall to our knees for the Lord to assist us in fulfilling what He asks of us. It is meant to open our eyes to our insufficiency.