What are the Desires our Hearts?
Psalms 37:4 Delight yourself also in the LORD, and He shall give you the desires of your heart.
Some years back I had a friend who was sick with cancer. He and his wife and at least one friend all seemed to take courage from a promise made in one of the Psalms. I think the verses were found in Psalm 30:2-3, “O LORD my God, I cried out to You, And You healed me. O LORD, You brought my soul up from the grave; you have kept me alive, that I should not go down to the pit.” After my friend died from the cancer, I asked his widow if she felt she had misunderstood the passage. She struggled with the fact that it appeared that the Lord had not kept his promise to her husband until she read Hebrews 11:13 which says, “These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them.” According to her, her husband had received the promise. Only the timing was misunderstood. He was now healed in heaven.
My mother recently died after a good long productive life. However, early in her marriage a tragedy occurred that greatly impacted her and the family. Her oldest child was accidentally scalded with hot water and died. At the funeral, the preacher made it clear that he believed based on David’s comments when his child by Bathsheba died, that Judy would be in heaven. David quit agonizing with the child died and said, “I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me (2 Samuel 12:23).” We know that David was a man who loved the Lord and who will undoubtedly be in God’s heaven. My mother was unsaved at the time that Judy died, but she believed in God and in a Biblical heaven and hell. However, she had never been born again; she had never trusted in Christ to put away her sins. It greatly bothered her to know that Judy would be in heaven and that she would never see her again unless she settled this matter of “being saved.” About a month later she did trust the Lord through John 6:37. The old King James Version says, “Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.” From that point on she delighted herself in the Lord and some 72 years later, she got to see Judy. Well, in all fairness, I don’t know if she has seen Judy yet. I don’t know just how all that works after we die. We probably see the Lord first. But if she hasn’t seen Judy yet she will in time. However, since the Lord says that if we delight ourselves in the Lord, He will give us the desires of our heart and since the desire of Mom’s heart was to see Judy, I suspect she has seen her.
I am amazed to think of the blessings that are in store for those who delight themselves in the Lord. This kind of delight cannot be faked. It is not Sunday only worship. It is not making a good impression on other Christians. This kind of delight is almost embarrassing to those who don’t understand it. A person who delights in the Lord is as obvious as those who delight themselves in the idols of this world. The blessings that come from delighting in the Lord are not always immediate and since we are a very impatient people, there is a tendency to think that a promise that has been delayed is a promise that has been denied. But that isn’t so.
One might assume that delighting in the Lord would be like an Aladdin’s lamp. One could wish for anything. Again, not so! If we are delighting in the Lord, what He delights in is what we will delight in. I suspect one who delights in the Lord would be talking to Him and following Him. He or she would likely be reading the Bible as a current living letter rather than as a quaint out of date and out of touch piece of literature.
We must never get so discouraged and bogged down with this life, that we forget the blessings that are available for those who delight themselves in the Lord.
Bruce Collins
Meditation for the week of October 6, 2013