Psalm 37:4-5
Thoughts from Pastor Josh
Dive Deeper
“Delight yourself in the Lord; and He will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord, trust also in Him, and He will do it.”
Psalm 37:4-5
Behind the Scenes
This week, as we’ve been learning about submitting our way to the Lord, this passage just keeps rumbling around in my head. It’s a simple verse, not really long at all, but one that is often hard to live out. We all love the idea of the Lord giving us the desires of our heart. But often we miss the point of this verse and the heart issue it addresses. Let’s take a look today.
In this verse there are two parts: first delight yourself in the Lord. Then, second, He will give you the desires of your heart. It’s important to understand this progression and why it is so critical. Often times we reverse the order. We want God to give us the desires of our heart first and then we will delight in Him. But that’s not how it’s supposed to be.
The word “delight” is really interesting in this passage. The original word is anag which means to be soft or pliable and to be happy about something. We use the word “delight” for something that satisfies us. But this word is different, it’s more than just selfish satisfaction. It really denotes this idea of softness and moldability. It is used in reference to feminine beauty and delicateness. It’s relaxed, peaceful and happy. The pleasure of this word is rooted in the softness. The happiness is a result of the pliability. It is defined in Gesenius’ Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon as “to live softly and delicately.”
Make it Real
I was so taken aback by this definition, and it so resonated with me. The more I studied it, the more I realized that this word really speaks two truths about how our hearts need to be when coming to the Lord:
God wants us to come to Him soft and pliable. When we let go of bitterness, control, anger and the things that make us hard, we create room for God to move. When we delight in the Lord it means we come to Him soft and ready to be changed. We put Him on the throne of our hearts, not ourselves. We submit to Him and allow Him to change us from the inside out.
This pliability and moldable heart makes room for the joy of the Lord to fill our hearts. The change the Lord brings always brings with it life, it is always for our good. It is peaceful and restful, not hurried and frenzied. When our delight is in the Lord it means we can embrace this “soft and delicate life.” When we are delighting in the Lord, we can find satisfaction for our souls.
This heart attitude is where God draws us first before giving us the desires of our heart. It is the prerequisite. But why? Well, simply put, if the desires of our hearts are not in submission to Him, it makes no sense for Him to give them to us. See, first we seek Him and allow Him to define the desires of our heart. Then once He has placed good and righteous desires in our heart, He follows through and brings them to pass.
We often come to God in our prayer time with selfish motives and inward focus. We rattle off a list of desires and then go about our day. But that’s not what God wants at all. It’s not about us getting everything we want from God, as if He were some genie in the sky. It’s about learning to delight in Him. It’s about a relationship with the God of the universe that leaves us forever changed in all the right ways. It’s about finding out delight in surrender to His perfect will.
C.S. Lewis said” I pray because I can’t help myself. I pray because I am helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping. It doesn’t change God. It changes me.” I love this quote because it really displays how his heart was not only surrendered to God, but entirely dependent on Him. C.S. Lewis had come to a place where he needed to be in community with God and he hungered for the life change that brought. I love that His need to pray was like breathing, not because he was seeking to manipulate or change God, but that he recognized His own need for change everyday. This is a picture of what it looks like to delight in the Lord, to be pliable and soft toward Him.
Reflection: I’ve often been guilty of getting this backwards: wanting the desires of my heart before delighting in the Lord. Can you relate? Do you find that your prayer life centers around things you want from God instead of God, Himself? How can you start to shift your heart and mind to delight in Him first and allow Him to define and decide the desires of your heart?
Crystal Garnett
ACF Digital Discipleship Team Lead
End in Prayer
Lord,
I want Your way above my own. I want to always delight in You more than anything else. Please soften my heart today. Help me to hold onto You more than I hold onto this world. Lord I need You. I need Your strength and Your guidance. Thank You for being a loving Father in my life. Thank You for always choosing the best for me, even when I cannot see it. Thank You that Your way is always the best way!
In Jesus’ Name,
Amen!