When You're Not Getting Your Ideal And You Feel Really Mad About It

What’s the ideal version of your life right now? If you are like me, you may be able to rattle off many things in this moment of your life that are not ideal, but you know what the ideal would look like.

It’s not wrong to want the ideal, or even to define it for ourselves, but what enslaves us is our loyalty to our own ideal.

God is not bound to give us our ideal life. God promises us that He will always do good for us, but His definition of good and ours can be very different. I am learning this through my study of Psalm 119 with Em Tyler.

Let’s look at this stanza of Psalm 119, starting with the Hebrew letter, Tet, which will help us to define good the way God does. Slow down and read each verse looking for God’s definition of good vs. your ideal.

Tet means good — and the word appears throughout this stanza like a refrain. You are good. Do good to your servant. It is good for me. The psalmist has been afflicted. He admits it plainly. And yet he can look back and say: it was good for me. Not because the suffering was pleasant, but because it drove him to God's Word in a way comfort never had. Before he was afflicted, he says, he wandered off (v.67). Affliction brought him home. The goodness of God can reach us through hard things - not because He causes cruelty, but because He is able to redeem everything and teach us through anything. Em Tyler in Psalm 119 for Summer Cohort

Sometimes my loyalty to my own ideal is so great that I become blind to God’s goodness. I look at the one outcome that I most desire, and I subconsciously decide that God isn’t good if He doesn’t give me that one thing.

I feel like a baby bird with my hungry mouth open all the time. Give me my ideal, God! Give me what I want right now! I know what’s best for me!

Peter was certain he knew his ideal when he told Jesus, “Lord, I am ready to go with you both to prison and to death,” expressing his ideal of undying love and faithfulness to his Lord (Luke 22:33). Jesus patiently informed him that God’s perfectly good plan actually was much different than Peter’s ideal plan. Peter would deny Jesus in just a few hours.

But God wasn’t finished with Peter’s story. “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers” (Luke 22:31-32). Jesus knew that Peter’s denial would shake him to the core, but He was confident that God’s goodness and grace would restore Peter. Peter could truly say, “It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes” (Psalm 119:71).

So here’s my confession and my hope. I want my ideal life, but God has a perfectly good plan that is better. I repent of grumbling over my disappointments. I repent of second guessing God. I repent of trying to prophesy what my ideal life will look like. I repent of my fear of failure and suffering.

As I let go of these things, I receive instead God’s power, God’s delight, and God’s will to give me a good life in Him. What a fantastic exchange, far better than my ideal! God’s good plan for me is infinitely valuable and eternally glorious.

What ideals are screaming at you today? How are you beating yourself up for not making your own ideals? How can you receive God’s perfectly good plan for today instead?

God’s perfectly good plan was the cross of Jesus Christ. God will not hold back any good thing from us in the end, because He didn’t hold back Jesus from the cross (Romans 8:32).

“I am the LORD your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it” (Psalm 81:10).

Let’s pray.