Tyrannized by What We Want

“Think of your sufferings as a weaning from that old sinful habit of always expecting to get your own way. Then you’ll be able to live out your days free to pursue what God wants instead of being tyrannized by what you want.” (1 Peter 4:1–2, The Message)

The Message does a pretty good job here of hammering home how we get led astray but what we think we want.  Our sufferings can be looked at as a way to drag us away from the expectation that we always get what we want. We don't always get what we want, and suffering is used by God in our lives in any number of unexpected ways, with Jesus' suffering being the supreme example.

This releases us from the tyranny of our own desires, and tyrannize us they certainly do. There is nothing so enslaving as our own wishes.  We pursue them constantly thinking that by fulfilling our wishes we will gain happiness and contentment, but when we get what we want, we find it is not quite what we really wanted so off we go after something else, in an endless attempt at satisfaction, which we never find.  Satisfaction comes when we are freed from the tyranny of what we want and pursue the one who created us.  He made us that way!