My life is not about me

My whole life I've been taught that if you do well and you do what you're supposed to do, good things will come. Although that is true, I began to do what I "thought" were the right things just in an attempt to get what I wanted. But my heart wasn't always in the right place. I've been living this life, thinking that I was doing what God wanted me to do just so I could get what I wanted from Him. 

How wrong is that? 

It's not something that I ever realized I did until everything that I wanted got taken away and things started falling apart. I began to sit and reflect on my life and take a deeper look inside myself. I began to see that I was attempting to please God so that He would bless me and not because that's what He deserves. I wasn't doing it intentionally, but I was still doing it. I would tell God that I would give up certain things and that I would stop doing certain things if He would just give me things that I wanted. How inconsiderate of me? How dare I ask the One who wakes me up everyday and allows me to live that life that I live to give me more in return for doing what He asks me to do? He doesn't owe me anything. 

After 22 years of being on this earth, I finally get it. God will bless me however He wants to whenever He is ready. But in the meantime, I need to live a life that is pleasing to Him because that is what He deserves. I want to see Him one day and when I do, I want Him to be pleased with the life I lived. 

My life isn't about me. It's not just about the things that I want or that I feel like I need. Yes, there are things that I want that I don't have, and there are things that have been taken away that I don't understand why, but God's will is bigger than anything that I can see or understand. God is a God of restoration and He can do things that we could never imagine.

So for now I rest in Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV) "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

And with this I am finally able to understand the scripture that I've been replaying in my head over and over again for the past year and a half, Philippians 4:6-7.