Delight yourself in the LORD and
he will give you the desires of your heart.
Psalm 37:4
The name-it-and-claim-it crowd would immediately gravitate to the second part of the verse: “…he will give you the desires of your heart.”
“Yes, please! Give me the ‘desires of my heart,’ Lord!” followed quickly by, “I’ll even tithe 20% when I win the lottery!”
Hyperbole aside, do we unconsciously adopt a transactional approach to following God? Do we somehow think that if we obey Him and try to live a good life, He owes us? Is our first response when trouble comes, “Why me?” rather than, “Why not me?”
The key to receiving our hearts’ desires is found in the first part of this verse: “Delight yourself in the LORD…”
As we commit ourselves to delighting in God — to keeping HIM on the throne, to following HIS will and living life HIS way, to making it our chief aim to bring HIM glory — blessing upon blessing will roll right back upon us. We find ourselves joyful, even when circumstances are unhappy. We realize we are peaceful, even amid chaos. More and more, we see love lead out in our actions, attitudes, words, and behaviors.
This is the blessing of abiding in Christ.
As we make that daily choice to delight in Him, we will one day realize that, to our surprise and amazement, He has given us the desires of our heart. But He did something a little sneaky: He did by changing our hearts! What a joy to see our hearts transformed and brought into alignment with God’s will and His desires for us.
We are often quick to see the connection of emotions with our heart, but as women of God committed to transformation and maturity, it is our will that must be engaged. Let the emotions catch up later!
The mark of maturity is doing what you are supposed to do, what you are called and commanded to do, what is the right thing to do — even when you don’t feel like doing it. As have-to becomes want-to, then gives way to delight-to, you will have the desires of your heart!
Have you seen last week’s teaching lecture from our Bible study in Romans? If not, I invite you to watch watch today as we follow up last week’s discussion of God’s sovereignty with an examination of our responsibility to share the good news, so that everyone will hear and respond with believing faith!
