Taking Pleasure

It’s a verse that most of us know by heart. We’ve repeated it over and over, claiming its promise for everything imaginable.

“Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:4). To delight is to take pleasure in, or to be pleased with; in this case to take pleasure in the Lord or to be pleased with the Lord.

I can think of a lot of things that would qualify as “the desires of my heart.” And I am sure that over the years I have claimed all kinds of things based on this verse. But this morning, after I had read through the chapter several times and stopped to think about some of the other verses, I returned to verse 4 again. In fact, I returned to it several times. I made this note beside the verse:

“The relationship between the believer and the Lord is what ultimately leads to the desires of the heart being fulfilled. And what desire is better than an intimate relationship with the Lord?”

The eternal circle. Finding my pleasure in an intimate relationship with the Lord may result in seeing the desires of my heart satisfied—whatever those desires may be. But as I take more and more pleasure in my relationship with the Lord I will probably find that the desires of my heart, as I once defined them, will become less important as I yearn for a deeper and even more intimate relationship with the Lord!

So the prayer becomes, not to have what my heart desires now, but to so delight myself in the Lord that the yearning of my heart is more and more after Him. And what could I ask that would give God more pleasure?

I don’t think anything would be better than that.

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