Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him and he will do this. Psalm 37:4-5May He give you the desire of your heart and make all your plans succeed. Psalm 20:4
These verses are heavily quoted but do we really have a true understanding of them. We must always read Scripture in the context of how it is written. The idea that God will give us the desires of our heart can be viewed in such a way that the writer did not intend. I always believed if I had good desires, righteous and honorable to the Lord, He would give those things to me and fulfill those desires in my heart to fruitition in my life. However, I believe this scripture very well may intend to mean that when we delight ourselves in the Lord, the Lord will place desires in our heart. That is, He will provide us the desires He wants for us, not that He will necessarily give us the desires that we already have in our heart. So then the desires we have in our hearts will be ones that He creates in us. Does that make sense? He will give us the desires that He wants us to follow and therefore, He will also make them succeed. I do not say this to burst anyone's bubble of what they believed or hoped this Scripture to mean. But rather to give you hope that if you don't see your desires being fulfilled, it will be okay. If God doesn't fulfill your desires then He will change them.
You have to remember that those who call upon Jesus as Savior have His Spirit dwelling within us. Many times we have desires and He fulfills those, so we think that He is giving us the desires of our heart. But rather it was Him to begin with that placed that original desire on our heart. So actually He is providing the desires IN our heart and then He is fulfilling them (thus "giving us the desires of our heart.")
I know my spirit rebelled against this when I first heard this interpretation. So many times we hear it expressed that if we just delight in Him, serve Him, and seek Him, then He will fulfill whatever is in our heart (assuming it to not be unholy or unrighteous). I wanted to believe that if I followed Him with all my heart then He would give me my heart's desires (one specific desire that I have). Though the desire I have is good, holy, righteous, honorable and in accordance to God's Holy Word, I just don't know that that scripture applies in that manner. Rather, I believe as I continue to seek after Him, His desires will become mine. I will desire after what He wants for me. Whatever it is that He's desiring for me, is what I will begin to desire. I believe the transition is so smooth that we don't even realize that it was His desire to start but rather we just thought it to be one of our desires. That is not to say the desires on your heart won't come to life. If they are desires He indeed has placed on your heart, if they are for His glory, then we can hope they will indeed be fulfilled. Just as the desire I have on my heart very well may be from Him. Actually, I do believe it is from Him because of the nature of the desire.
This was a difficult subject to formalize into words. It is something I felt led to write but found it difficult to know if I was being clear. I wanted to address the idea that God doesn't necessarily give us the desires we have and not everything comes to fruit. But rather we may desire something and instead of Him fulfilling that, He actually changes our desire and then fulfills that. Seek Him and He will place desires upon your heart and you can watch Him fulfill them.
Our God is an awesome God. Praise be to Him.
Prayer: "Lord, I release all my hopes and dreams to You this day. If there is anything I am longing for that is not to be a part of my life, I ask You to take away the desire for it so that what should be in my life will be released to me."
Be Blessed In Him,
Paula
5 comments:
I think you explained it very well and I agree with your interpretation.
The desire of Jesus heart was to please His Father and to glorify Him in all things. Jesus said he would send the Holy Spirit and when we have the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit, we will be "dead to the flesh and alive to His spirit."
That by the way is one of my favorite scriptures. Sometimes I pray, "Lord, I'm just going to delight myself in You and believe that the desire of my heart is the one You have placed there!
How liberating!
Oh, by the way, I really enjoy seeing what flower you are going to use on each post. I love that!
mary
Thanks, Mary. I'm glad my explanation came across well.
I LOVE flowers. I love the sun flower one...it's always been a favorite of mine because of the bright blue, yellow, and green. I need to go to the web and find some more.
I hope to post some more of my own flowers/trees but my photo discs have been erased. The cherry tree from two posts ago is the one in my yard.
Sweet Pea
Hi my friend, how are you? I am not sure where this week has gone, but it flew. Thanks for the message to get me back over here, I'll have to try your dip too. So how do I do that just mix it with the pudding and let it set up? Nice message, you've been building yourself up so nicely, I guess you could say you're full of it - :) I mean that in a good way. God knows your heart. Talk to you soon.
Blessings
Lynn
badctbPaula- I loved your interpretation and agree with it 100 percent. In fact I am living it right now. Last year about this time, I use to pray to the Lord to bring another husband into my life, only if it was his will.. (I have been a widow for 10 years without even a date,) Anyways I was content to live my life alone, mainly because I had an awesome relationship, with my husband.. Well he did bring someone into my life, but like fool I rejected him, (Not going into what an idiot I was,) Now I have finally released everything into the Lords hands,(it took me many months) and refuse to mess with it. (but there is good that has come out of it..... even if Kevin never wants to talk with me again, the Lord does.. I have grown so close to Jesus.... which is a total blessing and I would never give up the pain that has drawn me to the Lord... I read somewhere that God makes our hearts more beautiful through the cuts and wounds he allows us to experience..... That I believe... Bless you all. kathy
Oh yes- I forgot Mary, I love the prayer you said at the end, "lord, I'm just going to delight myself in YOU and believe that the desire of my heart is the one You have placed there! I claim that too! I even wrote it on a card by my bedside, to read each morning.... thank you
Well said and I certainly agree. Your comment on my blog was also well stated and I understand your frustrations with wanting your marriage restored.
There is one factor, however, that determines whether or not God's will is accomplished in our lives or not...free will. In the case of marriage, though you are willing to glorify God by making it work, your partner must be willing as well. Because of God's great love for us, He will never override our free will. To do so would make us robots.
I believe God can be glorified even in situations that do not turn out as we would like. You are glorifying Him even now as you share your conviction and desire to make your marriage work. As you pray for your ex-husband you reflect the love of God, which glorifies His Name as well.
God is always at work, through the good, bad, and quiet times. Continue to trust and follow Him in all your ways, just as you are doing now.
In Him,
Nancy
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