Delight Yourself In The Lord, And He Will Give You The Desires Of Your Heart.
Psalm 37:4
This verse has raised a powerful question in my heart & mind. I asked myself :- Are you really enjoying your relationship with the Lord? I started testing myself. I realized that the answer is NO.
Yes I am doing almost everything that as a Christian I must do. However now I understand that we need to Delight in our relationship with the Lord. Now the question is what is this Delight means?
It means:- You satisfy your relationship when you give them something they expect. You delight them when you give them something they didn’t expect
Delight is above satisfaction level.
- Jesus says Follow me & we do that. HE says obey me & we do that. Point is our attitude towards HIS voice.
- To be delighted is our part. We need to respect our relationship with The Lord. Most of us are angry with God. Without Grace it is impossible to delight in the Lord.
- Don’t irritate God after your prayers. Enjoy with Him. Yes many times we behave in a crazy way.
Delighting in God requires me to get to know Him well, too. I need to know God’s likes and dislikes, His preferences, His habits, His character, His nature. If someone asked me, “Tell me about your father,” I could rattle off a description of my wonderful early dad without missing a beat. The same needs to be true if someone asks, “Tell me about the Father.” In-depth knowledge of God is the fountain into which all rivers of delight in Him flow.
If we are delighting in God, we will be interested in Him and in what interests Him.
Inclining ourselves toward God means
turning our minds toward Him: “Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things” (Colossians 3:2).
Thinking about God (things above) often requires us to intentionally NOT think about something else (earthly things). It’s not that God doesn’t care about our earthly activities and concerns and interests; it’s just that we are to be first and foremost heaven-minded.
We cannot possibly delight in God if our relationship with Him isn’t a priority. And it’s not enough to say it is; we have to show it by how we choose to spend our time and energy, and even our money.
“Delight yourself in the LORD; And He will give you the desires of your heart” is a two-party, two-way equation. “Delight yourself…”: this is our job, our part, our responsibility. “And He will give you…”: this is God’s role, His end of the bargain.
When we delight in God—when we bend toward God—He bends our hearts so that He Himself is what we desire. I believe when God says He will give us the desires of our heart, He means first that He will put the desires themselves in our hearts. And then, because He also bends toward us—“He reached down from on high and took hold of me; he drew me out of deep waters…He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me” (Psalm 18:16, 19)—our inclining hearts reach toward Him and find what they long for most.
If you find that the Word of God, Jesus’ words, are hard to hear, then you are starting to head down the right road. You are starting to let His Word “Do Battle,” so to speak, with the many other lures and enticements that ultimately only leave us dry and empty. This is the first step to being able to delight in the Lord and His words.
The good news is that if you can allow His Word to cut through the many unhealthy attachments you have in life, you will begin to discover that you greatly love His Word and delight in His presence in your life. You will begin to discover that the pleasure and delight you experience from His presence in your life far outweighs any other passing attachment or pleasure you may have. Even sin can produce a false sense of satisfaction.
In that case, the satisfaction is more like a drug that soon wears off. The delight of the Lord is something that continually draws you higher and fulfills you more deeply every day.
Spend time, today, pondering whether or not you truly do allow yourself to be filled with delight in the Lord’s presence and His words. Try to taste their sweetness. Try to let yourself be drawn inin.
PRAYER:- Lord, I desire to delight in You. Help me to turn away from the many attractions and enticements of this world. Help me to seek You and Your Word always. In the discovery of Your Word, fill my soul with the greatest delight. Jesus, I trust in You. Amen