Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you your heart’s desires. – Psalms 37:4 NLT
The word “delight” means to take or express great pleasure in something. For example, taking or finding delight in watching your favourite sports or team, cooking, arts and so on. Taking great pleasure in something will require spending time studying, acquiring information and renewing your mind about that thing.
The phrase “Take delight” in our scriptural text is encouraging us to take great pleasure in the LORD. Delighting or taking great pleasure in the LORD will require spending time in devotion and fellowship with God.
God did not create us to be unadventurous or to live our lives in boredom. He wired us to be fascinated with life and for us to experience pleasure. The problem often is that we tend to seek to experience joy and pleasure in what God prohibits and what breaks His heart.
The secular world will counsel you that pleasure, joy and happiness can be found or obtained in all manners of indulgences and whatever your heart delights in. For believers, this pathway is dangerous and ungodly.
When the desire of our heart is ordered, initiated, and inspired by the Holy Spirit, we can be confident that the LORD will hear us and grant the desires of our hearts. “He grants the desires of those who fear him; he hears their cries for help and rescues them.” Psalms 145:19 (NLT)
The desires of our hearts are not the striving for the accumulation of things or the demise of our enemies. They are more of desiring and delighting in God and His character.
If the desire of our heart is for our enemies to die, I think the LORD is unlikely to grant that desire. It may even surprise and shock you that God may preserve the lives of our enemies longer than ours! Jesus said, “Love your enemies! Do good to them. Lend to them without expecting to be repaid. Then your reward from heaven will be very great, and you will truly be acting as children of the Most High, for he is kind to those who are unthankful and wicked.” Luke 6:35 (NLT)
When we make the LORD our joy and delight, the desires that grow in our hearts are usually the ones He has implanted. These are desires that bring lasting peace and satisfaction, not the things we think we want or strive to achieve without God.
“You will show me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore” Psalms 16:11 (NKJV). The “path of life” here is life that has its origin, trust, purpose and significance in God.
Too much pleasure in a thing can easily become idolatry but we can never have too much joy and pleasure in God. The desire of every believer should be to experience fullness of life, joy and pleasure in the presence of God both in this world and that to come.
Stay blessed,
LaraLex
Hills and Valleys 