Heart's Desires

Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. (Psalm 37:4)

I used to think that verse meant that if I loved God and if I delighted in Him, God would give me what I really wanted. I mean, that's basically what it says right?

But I have (slowly) come to realise that if that was all that I ever understood from that verse, I'd be missing out on a whole lot. And if I try to delight myself in the Lord because I want things or so that I can have my heart's desire, then I'm really not delighting in the Lord.

The entire psalm, one of the many written by David, talks about patience and trust in God. David's words came at a time in life where he was trusting God to make things right. His delight was in the Lord not so that the Lord would be on his side, but because he knew that the Lord was faithful to his people.

But David was a man who went all in (and all out) when it came to God. When he took delight in God, God became the desire of his heart. That's why David also wrote the words "my soul thirsts after you in a dry and weary land"(Ps 63:1) and "one thing...will I seek after: to live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life" (Ps 27:4). In his wholehearted pursuit of God, his desire turned to God only. All the other things that might have crowded his heart, clamoring for his attention were silenced. Once his focus was on God, none of those things mattered, yet they were all taken care of.

AW Tozer writes this in The Pursuit of God: 

The evil habit of seeking God-and effectively prevents us from finding God in full revelation. In the "and" lies our great woe. If we omit the "and" we shall soon find God, and in Him we shall find that for which we have all our lives been secretly longing.

And David isn't the only place in the Bible where God shows us what our hearts desires should be. David's words here foreshadow those of Jesus which came several hundred years afterward: "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you" (Matt 6:33), and those of Paul years after that "Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice." (Phil 4:4)

It is in taking our delight in God, pursuing God, making God alone the cry of our hearts that we can truly receive, or even understand the fullness of true prosperity, which is not limited by the extent of what our minds can perceive. Delighting in God, desiring God is a positive feedback loop where in wanting God and getting Him, we want Him all the more.

So truly take delight in the Lord, and make Him the desire of your heart. Pursue God, seek Him, for God has never yet forsaken the righteous. Let us work on changing the desires of our hearts

Be blessed and shine with new heart's desires!