Holy affections are desires that have been reshaped by faith so that they aim at God first and everything else second. This is what the Spirit is forming in us, through the frustrations and closed doors. He is teaching our hearts to put God back in the center and to let every other good thing orbit around Him instead of replacing Him. When that order is restored, our souls become less volatile. We are no longer destroyed by every loss or intoxicated by every possibility. We are steadier, more anchored, harder to deceive. “Be sober-minded and alert. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” (I Peter 5:8).
This reordering of putting God first begins to change how we pray. Our prayers become less like instructions to God and more surrendered to be changed by Him. We still ask boldly, but there is a new line woven into our requests:
“If this will take me away from Thee, do not give it to me. If it will awaken an idol in me, close the door. If this will leave me spiritually dull, disappoint me now rather than let us drift.”
Those words are costly; they mean we are giving God permission not just to guide us, but to contradict what we might think we want.
As we surrender to God’s will, we start to notice fruit if His Spirit blooming in us. We are no longer influenced by the world’s standards, but by His. Temptations that once seemed harmless now feel dangerous. Patterns of compromise that used to feel normal now feel heavy. The voices that used to tell us, “God just wants you to be happy,” sound thin compared to the weight of what He has walked us through. We have tasted the kind of happiness that almost stole our souls, and we are no longer interested in going back. We would rather limp in obedience than run in the wrong direction.
Our hearts are filled with gratitude, instead of bitterness. We not longer recall every detail of what we suffered because we are still angry or disappointed, but for what it produced in us in shaping us into God’s image. We still would not have chosen the path, but we cannot deny what it did inside us. We are more cautious with our hearts, more honest about our motives, more aware of how quickly good things can become gods/idols. We find ourselves saying,
“Lord, I did not like how You did it, but I see more of You now than I did before. If this is what it took to keep me from being lost, do not let me escape the work You are doing in me.”
This is not the end of the story, but it is a crucial turning point, the place where we stop seeing God only as the One who took something from us and begin to see Him as the One who is giving something deeper to us: discernment, sobriety, humility, and a joy that no simple happiness could have given.
After the shock and wrestling, we have to decide what to do with our lives on the other side of God’s “No.” The closed door is still there, the loss is still real, the ache has not completely gone away, but now the Holy Spirit begins to ask us a new question:
“Will you live the rest of your life afraid of wanting anything, or will you learn to desire differently?”
He is not calling us to emotional paralysis; He is calling us to rebuild, but this time with wisdom born from Holy discipline, not naïveté born from wishful thinking.
The first step in that rebuild is simple and brutal: we have to admit that we do not trust our own hearts as much as we used to. That is not self-hatred; it is humility.
Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can understand it?” Now we have seen that deceit at work in our own stories. We have watched ourselves rename idols as blessings and call dangerous paths answers to prayer. The Spirit invites us to remember this, not to live condemned, but to walk cautiously. We begin to say,
“Lord, I need Your eyes on my desires, because mine are not enough.”
From this heart posture our perspectives start to change. We bring our plans and desires into His light much earlier, asking, “What is driving this? Is it fear, pride, loneliness, comparison?” We allow the Bible to contradict our fleshly impulses. We treat the desires of our hearts as a starting point, not as unquestionable proof of God’s will. This slower, more deliberate way of moving forward may feel frustrating at first, but it is a kind of protection we did not have before. It is the fruit of being wounded and taught at the same time.
True spiritual maturity shows itself not in bold confidence, but in a careful, trembling dependence on God. In Philippians 2:12 it says, “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” The holiest saints walked softly, aware of how quickly they can fall without grace. That softness is what the Spirit is now forming in us. We do not rush into every open door or cling to every intense feeling. We test the spirits; we test our own motives; we are more willing to hear “stop and wait” than we were before. What once felt like hesitation now feels like obedience. The slowing of our pace is not weakness, it is wisdom, it is putting God first.
As we walk this way, we actually become more free, not less, because we are no longer enslaved to the fear of missing out. If God closes a path, we can grieve it without believing our lives are ruined. If He delays something, we can wrestle honestly, but underneath the wrestling is a deeper confession: “Father, if You are blocking this, there must be something I do not see.”
That underlying trust does not erase grief. It keeps grief from turning into despair. We begin to live as people who believe God is actively shepherding, not passively observing. This shift affects how we view future happiness. We treat it not as a fragile prize we must protect at any cost, but as a byproduct of walking with God, not a substitute for Him. We discover small joys that do not compete with His presence. We find that our souls rest more easily because they are no longer betting everything on one dream delivering what only Christ can.
The happiness God allows us to taste in this place is different. It is joy that can be received with open hands. And if necessary, laid down without losing ourselves or our hope – as Abraham was willing to do with Isaac. Slowly our life’s story becomes something more than just “what we lost” or “what God stopped.” It becomes a testimony of the kind of Holy people, set apart, called by His name that He is making us into.
~Inspired by the works of Jonathan Edwards, Treatise Concerning Religious Affections (1746)