The Desire To Delight

Psalm 37:4  Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart.

A Facebook friend of mine posted this verse in his wall, and I quickly “liked” it, along with many others.  Who doesn’t like that verse?  All of us have desires in our hearts, and there is nothing else that pumps up a Christian as a verse that promises us that God will grant us our desires.  Can you imagine, the very thing, person or achievement that we desire in our hearts will be granted by the Lord, as long as we delight in Him?  What a promise!

But here is where we tend to twist Scripture to make it say what we want, rather than actually reading what the Lord is actually saying.  The moment we read Psalm 37:4 our eyes focus on HE WILL GIVE YOU THE DESIRE OF YOUR HEART!  We don’t see the first part, the pre-requisite of the granting of our desire, which is – DELIGHT YOURSELF IN THE LORD.  What we don’t realize is that our true delight is in the Lord giving us our desires, rather than He being our delight.  This is why there are so many frustrated Christians, who run after other sources of receiving the desires of their heart.  They think that it is the Lord’s responsibility to be giving us what we want, what we desire.  And when He doesn’t give them, we run to other sources. 

The psalm reminds us that a Christians delight is in the Lord.  Period.  The WordWeb dictionary defines delight as “A feeling of extreme pleasure or satisfaction”.  To delight in the Lord is to have the Lord Himself as the source of pleasure and satisfaction.  No one else, nothing else, in the heart of a Christian, can take the place of the Lord as the source of joy, peace, satisfaction and pleasure in this world.  A Christian delights in prayer, in reading God’s Word, in serving Him in ministry, in fellowship with other Christians – because all these bring us to a closer fellowship with our God who we delight in.

The Lord reminds us that true pleasure and satisfaction does not come from love, from romance, from riches, material things, or pleasure.  True pleasure comes from enjoying the life that comes from the Lord Himself, a life that truly satisfies.  When a Christian delights in the Lord he/she realizes that there is no other desire that should rule his/her heart except God Himself.

The thing is this – if we are truly delighting in the Lord, we will most probably forget about every other desire that we have in our heart.  We are so delighted, so satisfied, so full of the Lord that our desires will not be as important as they usually are.

So why does God promise to give us our desires, just like in Psalm 37:4?  That’s just who He is – as our Father He gives us what He knows we will enjoy, what will bring us a little bit of gladness and enjoyment.

1 Timothy 6:17  Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.

God wants us to enjoy, and provides us with everything for our enjoyment.  But He does not want what He provides for our enjoyment to be what we delight in.  What God desires is that we delight in Him, that He be the very source of our pleasure and enjoyment in this life.

When a Christian truly delights in the Lord, God knows that He can provide Him with anything in this world – finances, success, a spouse, a family – and yet still delight in the true source of pleasure and enjoyment…God.

So, go ahead, delight yourself in the Lord…and just delight yourself in Him.  Let God take care of bringing your desires to pass.  Sounds like a good New Year’s prayer, doesn’t it?