“…we may find when the Lord gives it to us that what we were pursuing, and the reasons we pursued it, do not live up to expectation. We may even find the role causes us such great grief and difficulties that we did not reckon with that it may prove to be a real problem to us in our walk with Jesus.”
(Stephen Kneale – Building Jerusalem) I am convinced that there are times God gives us exactly what we want, not because it is a good thing for us, but because he is giving us over to that thing as a judgment. There can be times we ask, push and go after things that God would keep us from….
The thing may be an otherwise neutral thing that God, in his goodness, is keeping us from. It may be an ostensibly good thing that simply wouldn’t be good for us. It may be a bad thing, that would be bad for anyone, but we have decided it looks particularly good. Sometimes God gives us the desires of our heart so that we can see just how unappealing it is.
The Lord did this specifically to his people in Israel: