Desires of My Heart

“Delight yourself also in the LORD,And He shall give you the desires of your heart.”  Psalm 37:4

Have you ever noticed that the more toys/gifts our children are given, the more they want and the less satisfied they are? For that matter, we can be the same way. When there is an abundance of things, we tend to be a little more careless of them, so they break more quickly or lose their luster. There is always a newer, bigger, better thing that we think we want. There is always something else that we think we need to make us happy.

What are my hearts desires? Are they for pretty clothes? A nicer car? A bigger house? Nicer furniture? Time to take up a hobby? Money for all of the above?

There is nothing wrong with any of those things, but they should not be the deep desires of my heart. To be honest, yes, I would like all of those things. I don’t believe that they are what is being promised in this verse, though. If I am delighting myself in the Lord, these will not be the deep desires of my heart. I will desire the things that have more of an eternal significance. Things like children who are walking with and serving the Lord, a happy and fulfilling marriage, and a life that glorifies the Lord will be more important to me than material things.

Just as I delight to give gifts to my children, I believe that the Lord also delights to give us material gifts. However, I will be more thankful for them, more content, when my desires are for the things of eternal value. It seems almost like a contradiction, but I will enjoy the material gifts more when they mean less to me. On the other hand, if I can look back on my life when I come to the end of the road and see a husband who knows that he was loved, respected, and cherished, children who are living for the Lord, and people who were brought closer to the Lord through my life, I can have the contentment of knowing that my life was worth living. Those are the things that really matter, but those are the things that I will only see if I delight myself in the Lord.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 30th, 2009 at 10:03 pm and is filed under Daily Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.