I rolled over in bed, shutting my eyes tight and hoping I'd just fall back to sleep and be able to ignore my buzzing snooze alarm. The nauseous feeling penetrated my stomach again. I groaned and wrapped my arms around myself, praying it would go away.

My thoughts raced. It was Sunday, I should be getting up and getting ready for church. I knew from experience that these feelings would probably go away. But for the moment, they were practically paralyzing.

I'll just roll over and go back to sleep, I told myself. It's not like God will strike me with swine flu for it.

But what if He doesn't -

My eyes flew open, and I lay there in shock. Did I just think that? Did I actually just have the audacity to think that?

Because my full thought before my own indignant conscience cut me off was, What if he chooses not to give me that thing I've been praying for?

In that instance, everything I'd ever thought about my spiritual motivation changed.

Why do we do things that please God? Most of us would like to say it's because we love Him and wish to serve Him, but in fact, I believe that majority are also lying to themselves. I sure was for many years. And it was because for the longest time I was misinterpreting the verse, "Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart."

See, I'd always thought that meant I needed to obey Him. For some reason, I took the words "delight yourself in the Lord" to mean that I needed to make Him delight in me.

I never realized that He already does that.

So many bend over backwards trying to please God, as if we serve a tyrant who holds us to the strictest standards. But here's the deal: Our robot-like obedience is not what God wants. He wants our willing obedience, our loving obedience. The solution is not to earn His favor, but to simply say, "Lord, I am in over my head and have no idea where to go from here. I can't possibly earn blessing on my own. Whatever You choose to bestow on me, Father, that I will accept."

This incident was eight months ago. Did I end up skipping church? Slap me down and call me a heathen, yes, I did. And did God give me what I was praying for? No, He did not.

But I'm totally okay with that. I can see now that God didn't intend that for my life, and I'm glad for it. And I also know that He didn't decide this because I skipped out on church once in my life. It wasn't because of any errant move on my part. It was all because of His goodness.

He knows my steps, my waking and lying down. And He knows what is best for me. My job is to take my joy from Him and live to please Him, not because I am trying to get something from Him, but because He is Lord of my life and because I love Him so much, I can't help but serve Him with my life.