The Desires of Your Heart

As a little girl I was full of big dreams and deep desires. Like a dried up rose some of them have died. Others have been pruned – cut back so new ones could blossom in their place.

I remember first stumbling across Psalm 37:4 at age 18 when I began reading the Bible for myself (not just for Religion class).

In our selfish nature I think we often want to approach God like a genie – one who is able to grant us every thing we could ever want. It is true that God loves to give good gifts to His children (Matthew 7:11 & Luke 11:13), but our delight, our joy should never be rooted in what God offers, but in who He is. Many like to take this verse and other “warm-fuzzy” ones to promote a false prosperity gospel message – just love God and you will have the most amazing life….you will never have hardship again. Jesus said following him would not be easy! Life would still be hard.

To delight ourself in the Lord is to be so filled and at peace in His presence that naturally we want to live a life for Him. To rejoice in His goodness. It is not to worship the things He enjoys lavishing up those who love Him but to adore God for who He is.

While so undeserving, God has fulfilled so many of the desires of my heart. To marry my best friend; to live near the beach; to do something I love, to visit faraway places, to live a life of adventure….. And being the extravagant giver He is, He has gone above and beyond. To give you a glimpse at how God does this, He just made my girlhood dream come true – to swim with a dolphin in the wild! For over an hour I swam, played and laughed with a wild dolphin named Moko off the coast of New Zealand! As Moko and I played hide and seek, catch the seaweed-ball and tackled the waves together I giggled with a “perma-smile” stretched across my face knowing that while God didn’t have to give me this gift, He did anyway!

I believe something amazing happens when our delight is in the Lord and not the things of this world….let us pursue Him with all our heart!