Hi ~

One recurring topic in my books and other writings is "desire."

I've spoken a good bit about how it's good to have desires and how we can ask the Lord to help our desires align with His.

However, an email I received recently alerted me to the fact that I've never addressed Psalm 37:4.

Delight yourself in the Lord,

and he will give you the desires of your heart.

I was asked about the desire to be healed or the desire for an abusive husband to change . . . Will these requests be granted if we "delight ourselves in the Lord"?

I couldn't answer that with a yes or no, because we need a different question here.

I believe the problem here may be that when reading this verse we might think "If I delight myself in the Lord, then He'll give me what I want." 

That is, the desire precedes the delighting.

The delighting is done so that I can get my desire.

It ends up, without us really intending for it to be that way, as a kind of trick to try to manipulate God.

It ends up being that we're trying to delight ourselves in the Lord, but we're actually wanting something else. This then means that other thing is the thing we really want to delight in.

So what's the solution? We can read this verse differently.

The delighting comes first.

When we take those first steps of delighting ourselves in the Lord, in whatever degree of understanding we have of Him, then what we'll want is greater knowledge and awareness of HIM. 

And as we do this, He will grant us a greater awareness of His loving presence and a greater understanding of His ways.

So, we might look at the verse this way instead: "If I delight myself in the Lord, then He'll give me desires that align with His desires."

I would say "put the Lord first," but that too often sounds slavish, like doing and doing and doing.

The "putting Him first" that this way of thinking encourages is more like just spending time with Him, getting to know how good He is, better understanding His overarching plan, and desiring more of whatever it is He wants in my life.

One thing that definitely aligns with the heart of God and is always good to ask Him for is wisdom, to see things from His perspective and make decisions that are in line with His plans for furthering His Kingdom.

I pray you can see that when you delight yourself in the Lord, the desires He'll give you will align with His desires.

And no matter what situations we're faced with, that will always be a good thing.

All my best and for the Kingdom,

Rebecca

Untwisting Scriptures at heresthejoy.com

See my Untwisting Scriptures series

Trauma-informed Christian book coach at Rebecca Davis WordWorking

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