"Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart"
~Psalm 37:4
I find this verse really interesting because the fact is...
"The heart is deceitful about all things and desperately sick; who can understand it?"
Jeremiah 9:17
So, why would God EVER give me the desires of my HEART? My heart is DECEITFUL (not to mention desperately sick).
I guess this is why I like this verse so much. It's not because I think that if I love God enough I will get a 4.0, have the perfect job, the perfect husband, and everything I ever wanted... (the prosperity gospel isn't all it's cracked up to be)
I think it's because this verse shows me there is hope for my heart.
I see this already in my life, as the things I dream about now-a-days are drastically different (and substantially less comfortable and self-serving) than those dreams I had before I knew Jesus, but there are still some--rogue desires. So often my heart desires things not of God, not necessarily bad things, but just things that maybe aren't in God's plan for me right now. And yeah, my heart is deceitful. It tells me that I need these things now, that I don't need to trust God and (heaven forbid) wait for things.
But this verse tells me that there is hope for my deceitful heart...to continually delight myself in the LORD. The hope that I speak of is not that I'll suddenly receive these desires that are my own, but that in me constantly delighting in the things of God, and seeking HIS will for my life, that he will continue to change ALL of my desires into what HE desires for my life so that eventually I will no longer even want these other things if it is not HIS will.
This is comforting, because there is satisfaction there. A lot of times I think people are turned off by Jesus because they don't think they'll like the way their lives will look if they follow him...but that's not what scripture teaches. God tells us to seek him first and foremost and the more we do that the more our desires (what we actually WANT) will be shaped by what God has specifically for us...not just some vague "I am supposed to only want Jesus, so that's what I want" attitude, but we will desire specifically what God has for us in that point in our life (whether it's to form more Godly friendships, disciple younger believers, go to a foreign land to tell people about God, settle down and have babies and raise them in a Godly manner). God will give us desires for Him first and foremost but also for the good things he has created for us to do for him, at the right times in our lives.
So this is convicting for me, because as I think I said earlier, I so much of the time have desires that aren't being shaped by God and instead of giving them to God, I feed them by wondering, well, exactly why they aren't in the plan for my life right now and how I could make them be part of the plan instead of being content with what God has given me in this season of my life.
Help me to delight in you, father, all my days, that I may desire only what you have for me when you have it for me.
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