Heart's Desire

 Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Psalms 37:4

A commonly quoted verse. 

And I had no idea what it meant until this week of my life. 19 years in the making. Not what it really meant, at least. And I'm sure I still don't completely understand it. But I may have a better idea now. 

I got into JMU's Nursing School. God is so good to me. So, so good. Beyond good. All the praise is His! 

Take delight in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart. There's so many layers to this verse. What does it mean to take delight? What kind of desires are we talking about here? Seems kind of selfish right?

I'm not quite sure what taking delight means for everyone, or what it means in the context of when David wrote this. But for me, taking delight doesn't necessarily mean excitement, happy times or sunshine all the time. To me, it means calmness, completeness, satisfaction and being filled to the brim, but still wanting more. And only God can give this kind of delight. For example, I don't always look forward to reading His Word in the morning with a kind of bouncing off the walls excitement. It is morning after all. But after I spend time in His Word and with Him in the morning, I feel calm and satisfied in Him. And I want to keep spending time with Him all day. That's taking delight for me. I'm thankful that He is a God of delight, who delights in me, as I delight in Him. It's a beautiful thing. Not to say I'm the perfect example, I'm definitely not. But that's one way I delight in the Lord. I can also delight in Him by spending time in fellowship with others, worshiping Him, serving Him, loving others, dying to myself, talking about Him, praying to Him etc. The list could go on for miles.

What kind of desires are of your heart? That's a tough one. And I think God is kind of tricky here (is it ok to say God is tricky?).  God clearly says desires of your heart. Not your flesh. Not your mind. Not your plans and dreams. But the heart. And who knows the human heart better than the One who made it? God says to take delight in Him and He'll give me the desires of my heart. This is where He's tricky. If I am truly delighting in the Lord, and He is satisfying my heart, what other desires could I possibly have besides Him? 

...Maybe God was saying, just try it out for a bit. Try delighting in Me. Then maybe you'll see, I do satisfy every desire of Your heart, all by myself. You don't need that job promotion, pay raise, new boyfriend/girlfriend, good grade on that test etc. Those are things we think we need. But God knows us much better than we know ourselves, and thankfully He doesn't always listen to us. He knows what we need. And it's Him. It always has, and it always will be only Him.

The human heart is a complicated matter. God has richly blessed me in the month of January, 2013.  He has given me the opportunity to be an OPA and start nursing school in the fall of 2013.  And there is nothing I did to deserve that. And that's why I struggle with that verse. Take delight in the Lord and He will give me the desires of my heart. So is any of this a fruit of delighting in Him? I have been delighting in Him in more ways and much more often than I ever have in my life. But I think that implies I had something to do with it. And I don't think that's the case. This is purely God's blessings raining down on me. A torrential downpour, really. And I'm really enjoying dancing in the rain with Him!

But God ALONE can satisfy my heart. He ALONE knows the desires of my heart. And sometimes, ok most of the time, I don't have good desires. They're mostly selfish, ignorant, foolish. I'm finding more and more as I truly delight in Him, the desires of my heart drastically change. My desires are less for myself, and more for God, and God alone. The things I thought I needed are slowly but surely fading away. Yes, God has granted me these wonderful life blessings. But if my heart's desire isn't truly after Him, then what's the point in living? There's no point in these blessings if they're not for a purpose to bring about God's kingdom.

Maybe sometimes as I delight in God, the desires of my heart here on earth naturally come with it? To be honest, I didn't realize how much I truly desired being an OPA or getting into nursing school until it happened. As long as I don't start thinking these things are happening because of my own hand. Now that would be foolish and ignorant. Sure, I put in hard work and effort. But millions of people do that everyday and come home hungry with nothing to show for it. This is truly a blessing. Nothing else.

~"Christian workers FAIL because they place their desire for their own holiness above their desire to know God."
~Oswald Chambers 

It's easy to praise Him in the goodness and blessings He gives. I'm so thankful this is one of those times! A time when everything seems to be going all right. A time when He showers me in an abundance of blessings. Easy times. Thank the Lord for those. And praise Him for giving me the desires of my heart here on earth! It's quite overwhelming.