Wishing and wanting won't help.

     When I was growing up there was a phrase adults used which made no sense to me.  "Wish in one hand, want in the other."  There are probably many different interpretations to that phrase.  Here is my take on the phrase.  We live our lives with mixed and often wrong priorities.  While we wish that we had this, done that, could say this, and such; they still are just wishes.  The same goes for wants.  We can want steak for dinner, our kids to listen to us, harmony at work and home, and many other wants; but they are still just wants.  In order to understand the wishes and wants we need to look at our motivation for same.  For instance, I'm on the freeway running low on gas and I wish I had a sigh of a gas station at the next off ramp.  As I pass yet another on ramp my wish becomes a want as he needle drops even lower.  Neither my wish, nor my want, put a drop of gas into my car.  Somewhere along the line there needs to be action on my part.  Without action on my part the need for gas still is just a "wish in one hand, want in the other."
     I wish you good health.  I wish you a Merry Christmas.  I wish you a Happy Birthday.  I wish...  the list goes on and on.  Yet, we have no way of making the wish come true.  That's up to the individual addressed.  I can wish all I want and make my motives crystal clear that I have no agenda for myself in the wish.  Yet, if the recipient of the wish doesn't wish to acknowledge or receive the wish my efforts were futile.  Wishing someone happiness, joy, peace and other important aspects of a good life are noble.  Wishing you weren't there or were there doesn't make it so.  You see, we can wish all we want and unless someone does something nothing is going to happen.  I wish you could understand that wishing is just wishing.  It's nothing more and nothing less.  The Bible doesn't urge us to "wish" for anything.  Rather, we are charged to ask (do something) the Lord to address the issue we previously "wished" be taken care of.  Prayer is the act (action) of putting before the Lord that which we deem important.  Action.  That's the element missing from wishing.
     Now wanting is much different and yet the same.  Wanting is centered in hindsight.  We wouldn't know how to want anything unless we had knowledge that we didn't have that which we want.  I want something.  It doesn't matter what.  The key word is "want" and not need.  We want that which we do not have and kill and steal to have it (James).  We need to understand that the motivation behind wanting is selfishness.  We wish to have this or that so that we can receive something from having that item.  For instance, we want blankets to give to the poor.  The "want" is based on our being good servants and taking care of the homeless.  Wrong.  The want should be based on the homeless need and not on our wanting to take care of the homeless.  We need (according to the Bible) to take care of one another and love others as we love ourselves.  When we do so, our want turns into a need to serve.  There are no Biblical mandates that we "want" anything.  None.  Zip.  We do have a mandate to put our "needs" before the Lord.  God says that he will take care of all of our needs even before we ask.  Why?  Because then we are freed up to do his will instead of knocking at his door asking for our needs all day long. 
     Wishing and wanting won't help the Christian be a better Christian.  Wishing and wanting will make the Christian more in line with the morals and principles of the world than Christ.  Wishing and wanting can be changed.  I need you to have a Merry Christmas and you can't do that without knowing Jesus!  I need you to have a Happy Birthday because that was the day God brought you into our lives and blessed us.  I need you to obey your parents so that you can live long and be blessed.  That's the first commandment with a promise (from the Ten Commandments).  Jesus needs us to stop wishing and wanting and begin living in the knowledge that he takes care of all of our needs so that we are freed up to attend to the needs of his people and the unsaved.  Taking care of the needs of those Christian and non-Christian around us is what being Christian is all about.