"Take delight in the Lord, and He will give you your heart's desires." Psalm 37:4, NLT
I used to read this verse and think that if I followed all the rules, then God would give me what I want. Ha. Ha. Hahaha! I'm so blessed He's brought me past that wrong way of thinking. Because, guess what? Every time I didn't follow all the rules, I was totally broken and dismayed by my level of guilt, thinking my own inability to please God was the reason I wasn't happy. Romans 3:9b-12 says, "We have already made the charge that Jews & Gentiles alike are all under sin. As it is written, 'There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one." I could never - never, ever, never - please God on my own. Thank God that He sent Jesus to die on the cross for my sins and cover me with His grace, so that now when God looks at me, He sees Jesus' purity and accepts me into His family.
How does one "take delight in the Lord?" By reading His Word, by poring over it and making Him your passion. By carving out the time to form a real, personal relationship with Him just as you would do with your closest friend. What would happen if you didn't carve out time with your friend? The relationship would become stagnant, non-existent. What happens when you don't carve out time for God? You start seeking fulfillment and happiness elsewhere, you start looking for pleasures that abound in the world, but are fleeting and still leave you wanting. The relationship grows stagnant, and God lets you go out and explore...He gives you over to these temporary desires. But these desires, even the good ones (having a good career, finding the love of your life, having a child, making and keeping friends) are still all earthly things, so they still don't fulfill. So, what is God talking about when He says He'll give you your heart's desires? When we delight in the Lord, we start to see things from His Word, His will and His perspective. Simply put, our desires change. They begin to mesh with His desires for our lives, because His desires for us are best. He wants us to be free and at peace and find joy - even when we don't necessarily feel it. There will be hurts, there will be suffering; sometimes our deepest wants won't be met. But when we make God's desires the center of our heart for our lives, we will be fulfilled in a way that's indescribable. It's indescribably by human terms, because it comes from Him. It's why we can rejoice in suffering, because of the hope He offers.
No one can guess the secret will of God, and you know what? Sometimes it doesn't make sense, it doesn't seem fair and we just don't understand. The good news is: He does. And someday, when we give it over to Him, He'll show us why He arranged things just so. And we'll say, "Aha! I get it now!"
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