The Desires of Your Heart

Delight yourself also in the LORD,
And He shall give you the desires of your heart. Psalm 37:4

I commented a couple of days ago on how the Lord often chooses to use us while we are doing things we may not necessarily “like” on our own. That is not to say the God wants to make us miserable, or that His plan for us is going to be something that we will be unhappy doing. Quite the opposite is true.

What often happens is that God chooses to move us out of our comfort zone into a place where we must rely more fully on Him. As Christians, we are fond of talking about the faith that we have, and we sing about how we are “desperate for Him” and “lost without Him”. But the actual working of faith in our lives is often very different from the faith that we profess.

It is “out of our comfort zone” where we come to understand that God is far less concerned with our comfort than with our holiness. It is in those uncomfortable places that we discover if we are going to follow Him only when it’s convenient and when He’s letting us do things our own way, or if we really do trust Him with our lives.

But, you say, “Doesn’t the Bible say that God will give us the desires of our hearts?”

Absolutely. I think, though, that when we look at that promise as a sort of “blank check” from God, we completely misinterpret what He is saying. If God actually gave me everything my heart desires, it would go against the very nature of God. He is GOOD. And what I have found, and what Scripture confirms, is that my heart is deceitful – it will mislead me.

So what I find in this promise of God to give me the desires of my heart is not that He is offering me a blank check of self-indulgence. Rather, what happens is He gives me the desires of my heart – in other words, when I am walking closely with Him, I desire what He desires.

In real life, what that means is that I can do things I never thought I would be able to do. I can enjoy things that I could never even attempt in my own strength. I can even ‘like’ things that would otherwise strike great fear and trembling in my heart. (And truthfully, sometimes there is still a little fear and trembling – that’s just the enemy trying to rob me of a blessing. Fortunately, the love of God casts out fear, so trusting in Him moves me past the fear.)

So rest assured that God’s plan for you is not to make you miserable and to force you to do something that you don’t want to do. He may just want to broaden your horizons and introduce you to opportunities you never thought possible!

Just a thought…