The desires of our hearts

     Psalm 37:4 reads, “Delight yourself also in the LORD, and He shall give you the desires of your heart.” You know, when I was first brought to faith I thought I knew what I wanted from the Lord. I came with a list of things in my heart like a child’s Christmas wish list. I’m very glad that God did not give me all I asked for.

     I think that this promise from the Psalms means something else these days. I think that Christians, that is, genuine converts, delight in God. As they grow in the knowledge of Him, they learn to delight in Him even more! Their lives, if they’re discipled well, become less and less about them, and more and more about God and others. As they are engulfed in all things not them, something happens. Soon they see themselves doing what they themselves might call, “That for which they were created.”

     Today I got to tell another total stranger about the gospel. I got to call him to repentance. I got to bring glad tidings of good things to a neighbor. I could die content! I never knew that a desire of my heart was evangelism! Yet there it is.  God knows us better than we know ourselves.

     God gives us the desires of our hearts; we don’t give them to God like Santa. Number one, the desire of our hearts is Him. When God gives us Himself we’re most satisfied. That’s more of an elevated answer, but of course that is the best thing. Second to God giving us of Himself is our works, our families, our jobs, etc., all the things that God gives us for our growth. I think that what Psalm 37:4 really means is that God assigns us our desires; we don’t come up with them. I could phrase at least one main idea in Psalm 37:4 like this: As we delight in Him…He lets us know what our desires are. Sometimes people are closer to what God would have for them than others, but in any case, it’s a genuine delight in God that’ll get us there.

     “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you,” Matthew 6:33.