Lenten Reflection on The Desires of Your Heart

Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart….Ps 37:4  

Can this really be true? All we need to do is ‘delight ourselves in the Lord’ and he will give us everything we want?  And, what does it mean to delight ourselves in the Lord, anyway?

As usual, scripture verses from the Bible can be taken lightly and literally, but often have a deeper meaning that takes a little digging.

We can delight ourselves in the Lord by putting him first in our lives, living by his commands and his example. By letting Jesus be just who he is…. the  Lord of our life. When we are conscious of God in our life, and we lean on him, trust him and defer to him every step of the way, alongside prayer, worship and scripture study, these are all ways of delighting in the Lord.    

So this verse seems to say if we delight ourselves in the Lord by doing these things, then God will give us whatever we desire. But what if it means, instead, that He will give us new things to desire?

It’s like if we delight ourselves in the Lord then maybe he will change our desires, and give us new, more meaningful things to desire. If we devote our life to the Lord, He will shape the desires of our hearts into what it is that will really satisfy us. He will cause us to want  and desire different things. Meaningful things. Things that will bring us deep-seated joy over temporary  happiness.

Anyway, do we really think that if we delight ourselves in the Lord  we kind of just suddenly start getting every material thing we want? You know…an ‘A’ on that test, more money, a better job, a bigger house, a nicer car,  awesome vacation, perfect children, more… “happiness?”

Although these things might  make us happier in the short term, I think maybe God is in the business of helping us find joy over happiness. A contentment and a peace that surpasses the temporal enjoyment of material things.

So we think we want all this cool worldly stuff, but if we delight ourselves in the Lord maybe he shows us what the true desires are that are deep in our hearts. In our spirits. Maybe God gives those to us instead of just heaping upon us a bunch of ‘stuff’ if we agree to delight ourselves in him.

Instead of chasing after the wealth of this world, maybe we begin to consider setting our sights on the treasures and the riches stored up in the next.

And when we truly delight ourselves in the Lord, we no longer have such a strong yearning for all things shiny, bright, expensive, new  and ultimately, empty.

What God gives us is a new desire. Something that will bring us closer to Him, through sacrifice and service to others, or through using a gift he has given us to make the world a better place. He places in us a better, deeper, more profound desire. A desire  that he knows will give us joy, contentment and peace.