Psalms of Comfort 5: The Desires of Your Heart

Psalm 37

3 Trust in the LORD and do good;
dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.

4 Take delight in the LORD,
and he will give you the desires of your heart

Do you know the desires of your heart?

When you shake a bottle of fizzy juice you don’t see any change from the outside but when you take the cap off the bottle it fizzes out the top and makes an awful mess. Our lives have been shaken, and it seems that we have nowhere for the pent up frustrations, worries and desires to release to. We might look okay on the outside but inside there is turmoil and unrest.

If we feel like asking, can I ask what we are taking delight in? The word for delight means to be soft or tender. So be soft and tender before the Lord, trust Him with your hearts, do the good His word tells us to do.

If we are hard and tough before the Lord He will not give us what we ask for. I think that may be because when our hearts are in that harsh state, we will ask for what we think we need. Of unanswered prayer, it is often said that God gives us what we would ask for if we knew what He knows. The heart here is defined as the feelings, the will and even the intellect; it is a word for the centre of anything.

Our own desires can do us untold damage, they can make a mess of our lives like the bottle of juice that fizzes over. So come before the Lord, trust Him that He knows your deepest needs. Allow Him to tenderise our hearts, to influence our lives and to shape them and then we will see an intersection of God’s desires and our desires.

When what we want lines up with what God wants then our lives will be fulfilled.