Is it wrong to wish for something?

"Desire" and "lust" are really the same word, as may be seen from many passages. For example, the word translated "lust" in the above scripture is the same as that in Phil. 1:23 (and a number of other places), where it could only be rendered "desire." It is the thing longed for that characterises the nature of the feeling cherished. If the object of the craving is good, according to God, then it is a holy desire. Thus the Lord Himself uses the word in question when He says to His disciples, "With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer." (Luke 22:15.) When the object, on the other hand, is evil, then the desire for it is "lust." Hence the apostle employs the word when he speaks of the "lusts of our flesh." (Ephesians 2:3.) There is consequently an important distinction to be noted. "Lust," as James teaches, has its origin in ourselves (chapter 1:14), but holy "desire" is the fruit of the action of the Spirit of God in the believer.

If our desires are legitimate, there is no need to fight amongst ourselves to obtain them; we can ask of God. It is true, however, that we may not obtain an answer to our prayers, because we may ask with the wrong motive of gratifying some lust.

But on the other hand, one may ask and receive not. Why? Because it is not faith, but fleshly desire that moves him; and if he gets what he wants, God knows it would be damaging to his own soul. Man Is lustful enough, without God also encouraging these lusts, by answering prayer of this kind.

Does someone say in a rather aggrieved tone, "But I have asked, time and again, yet I have never received." The explanation may be that you have asked "amiss" or "evilly", your object in asking being simply the gratification of your own desires. Had you received it, you would have just spent it upon your own pleasures. Hence God has withheld from you your desire.

How plainly this teaches us that God looks at the heart. He scrutinizes the motive that lies behind the asking. This is very searching, and it explains a lot of unanswered prayer. We may ask for thoroughly right things and be denied, because we ask from thoroughly wrong motives.

The prayer of want is all right. "In everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God."

Presenting our requests, subject to His will, is always right. Of this we have an example even in Gethsemane; so Paul for his thorn in the flesh. And the answer will be more glorious and blessed than the request, even when it does not as asked answer it. See John 12 and Ps. 132: so Psalm 21, and even Paul's request about the thorn. Let us trust His love, and this will not come short, and if He has given us faith to expect a specific answer, bless God for it. Only our will must not come in; even if it was answered (this was the case of the quails), but as a rule not, as James teaches. But where there is earnest faith, God will surely hear, though He may give us safeguards against our own will in it.

Even as parents we often have to refuse the requests of our children. A little lad of four asks his mother for his father’s razor to play with. Will she answer his prayer? And often we ask God for razors whereby we might injure ourselves.

We want to look at a few particulars. There are certain conditions upon which God answers prayer. We often ask for things which are not expedient for us. If a wrong thing is urgently asked from God, and it is at last given, it always ends in sorrow. "He gave them their request, but sent leanness into their soul" (Ps. 106:15). Our petitions must be in accordance with His will. His will is perfect, and when our prayers are in harmony with that will, in a line with it as it were, we know that we have our petitions. "Very well," you say, "how am I to ascertain what is the will of God? "There are various ways of finding out. Take the promises that God has given — "exceeding great and precious promises." I have never yet counted them, but it might be a profitable occupation for any who wish to do so. Anyhow, every promise that God has given us is a declaration of His will. He means that we should claim and have it. Therefore if you bring your request on the ground of a promise of God you have a sure foothold.

The very "importunity" of the man at the unseasonable hour of midnight, was the occasion of his obtaining the loaves (Luke 11:8). One can lay down no rules in such cases. The truly exercised heart gets its own answer from God. At times we can, with simple confidence, "make known," and commit the request to God. At others the heart is conscious that it cannot but cry to God until the heart is at rest as to the petition. He will not give it till His own time, and meanwhile the soul is kept in earnest exercise; faith is tested and patience tried, and the heart watches and waits on Him. Again, such is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will He hears us; and if we know that He hears us, we know we have the petitions that we desired of Him (1 John 5:14-15). He listens to everything, and grants that which is in accordance with His will. He cannot fail in power, and we have the reply. The true heart would ask nothing contrary to His mind and will. Back

But where Christ is not before the eye of faith working by love, how mournful the issue! "Ye lust and have not; ye kill, and are jealous, and cannot obtain; ye fight and war; ye have not, because ye ask not; ye ask and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may spend [it] in your pleasures." Here the evil is traced to that unhallowed desire that is called "lust," whatever may be its object, and whether corrupt or violent. It is wholly in contrast with subjection to God and His word. It is therefore antagonistic to the affection and mind of the Holy Spirit, as is said in Gal. 5:17, "For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these things are opposed one to the other, that ye should not do the things that ye would."

Here therefore we have, traced in unerring lines, the inevitable failure of such a course. There are desires which come to nothing; there is violence to an extreme, and envy or jealousy to the full, yet still dissatisfaction; there is contention ever growing worse; there is no asking, and no answer of peace. If there be asking apparently, there is the reserve of selfishness; it is evilly done to squander on their pleasures.