Desires of Your Heart

Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.

Psalm 37:4

When I was younger, I read this verse to mean, “Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you what you really, really want.”  I guess to a certain degree that may be true, but as I got older, another dimension of this verse started standing out to me more.

Maybe “He will give you the desires of your heart” refers less to getting whatever it is you really, really want, and refers more to the God-given desires that HE places on your heart. As we grow closer to God in our relationship with Him, we start to see things differently. We see more as He sees, our hearts break more for things that break His heart, and we start recognizing and cultivating gifts and abilities He’s given us. After a while, the things we thought we wanted for our lives may change direction and become different paths, passions, or callings. Because HE gave them to us. As we delight in Him and just have a relationship with Him, we inevitably change and grow and often, our desires do as well.

For someone with control issues (like me), my first realization of this concept didn’t sit well. My first reaction was something along the lines of “But what about this thing that I realllllyyyyyy want, God? Does this mean that will never happen???” But it’s more nuanced than that. Most of the things I dreamed for my life when I was younger did happen. However, they happened in exactly the way and on the timeline that God wanted. There were twists and turns, dips in the roller coaster, and paths I would have never taken on my own but were so much better than what my little heart could dream up. I had to (at least attempt) to lay down control--repeatedly-- and choose to trust Him instead.

So, are you willing to let God shape the desires in your heart? Or are you going to hold on to your own interpretation of them? Are you willing to be open to completely new dreams and desires? I challenge you to pray through that, and trust Him to shape your heart and who you are as a person. Just delight in Him. Just get to know Him, be in relationship with Him. He’ll lead you.

 

Blessings, 

Connie