Psalm 37:4

I believe that Psalm 37:4 is true—Delight yourself in the LORD and He will give you the desires of your heart.  God knows deeply what the desires of our heart are.  He sees beyond our feeble attempts to fulfill our desires and sees what we really need.  He sees what our deepest longings are; He sees how to most fully satisfy those desires.  And He is more than capable of meeting those desires.  It reminds me of a quote of Amy Carmichael—“It is a safe thing to trust Him to satisfy the desires He creates.”  


But why is that contingent upon our delighting ourselves in the LORD?  I think that God knows that He is the only one who can satisfy.  I think that He knows that by giving us other things, they could potentially draw our eyes away from Him and onto something else.  It is only when we have deep satisfaction in God that we have become trustworthy enough to have Him satisfy the desires of our hearts.  When He knows that we will follow Him regardless of what He gives us or takes away from us, that’s when He’ll most fully satisfy the desires of our hearts.  


And the psalmist says “Delight ourselves in the Lord.”  He doesn’t say, “Obey all the Lord’s commands.”  He doesn’t say, “Follow God wholeheartedly.”  He doesn’t say, “Have daily quiet times.”  What is most important is to “Delight ourselves in the LORD.”  To love Him to the utmost that our hearts can, to regard Him not as a Master, but as a Lover, to run to Him eager to spend time with Him, to smile when thinking about Him.  All these things are signs of delighting ourselves in the LORD.  It is God's desire for us to delight in Him, not just obey Him.