Who's King of your heart?

The one thing I ask of the LORD--the thing I seek most--is to live in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, delighting in the LORD's perfections and meditating in his Temple. Psalm 27:4

My daughter's voice teacher, Christa, is working on a new song for Presley to sing. The song is called, "King of my heart". 

As I listen to them from the other room practicing the words, the tune, the technique of this beautiful song, I pondered this question...

Who or what is the King of my heart?

I can tell you with honesty it hasn't always been Jesus. 

He has been a close second at times, but I can look at a calendar and point to a particular year and tell you exactly who or what was king of my heart at the time. 

I remember not too long ago one king in particular.

I wanted more children. I so badly wanted to adopt. I felt this stirring in my heart and I prayed for years and years for God to fulfill this desire. 

My husband did not have the same desire. I begged and pleaded with him to pray with me about this and he was very adamant that he did not feel like we should add more children to our family. 

I was devastated. 

I began to have bitterness towards him, and towards God. 

Why would God put me with a man that did not share my same desire?

Tear stained journal entries filled the pages of my life. 

My heart began to grow hard toward the Lord and toward my husband. 

My desire for more children became an idol. 

It consumed my thoughts. It weighed on my heart heavily this emptiness I felt that could only be filled by more children. 

I could go on and on...

There have been many kings of my heart. 

However, until I began to truly desire only One King...my life was not fulfilled. 

The Lord slowly began to help me unclench my fingers from this desire. It was a long process. 

I didn't want to give up that desire. It had become an addiction almost. It had put a wedge between me and the Lord and me and my husband. But, I didn't care. I just wanted what I wanted. 

I began to pray the same prayer as David prayed in the verse above in Psalm 24. Over and over I prayed this prayer. 

I also began to pray, "Lord, your will be done. Not mine."

Those are some of the hardest words to pray. 

I began to see how God was fulfilling the desire for more children in different ways than I had imagined. Like, when kids from the neighborhood would constantly be in and out of our house. Sitting at our table night after night for dinner. Or, when my nephew came to live with us for 3 years.  Or, helping in the classrooms that my kids were in. 

I began to see that the stirring to help children was much broader than I had initially thought, and much different than I had planned. 

Isn't that always like God? 

We must trust God with our desires, and trust Him with His timing. This will come much easier when He becomes our first desire. The King of our heart above anyone or anything else. 

Desires are good, but they must never be bigger than our desire for Jesus. 

We must constantly stay in the Word and in prayer in order to untangle the desires that stir our hearts. 

Who or what is King of your heart?

Ask the Lord Jesus to be King. Every single day seek Him and talk to Him. Ask Him to put in your heart desires that only come from Him. 

Ask the Lord to remove any desire that is not from Him, and be willing to lay it down. 

He has better things for you than you could ever imagine. 

dethroning any other king of this heart, 

jill