Psalm 37:4
Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.
This passage can be easily misunderstood, so I think the first place to start is to see what this passage doesn't mean:
What this passage doesn't mean is that if you delight yourself in the Lord, He'll reward you will all the things you've ever wanted. It doesn't mean that He'll give you a huge mansion, a Lamborghini and a private jet. It's pretty easy to see that God never promises to give us these things and it's also easy to see that a life totally devoted to God often has the opposite effect and ends in hard earthly temporary pain in sight of eternal glory.
So now that we've got that out of the way and know God isn't promising us a Lambo, there's one more thing that we have to look at before we can understand the meaning of this passage: God is the most satisfying, most pleasant, most wonderful thing in the universe. Only He can satisfy our deepest craving because He made us with those deep cravings for Him. Although it's often hard to see, and often we reject it, God really is the most pleasant thing that we could ever enjoy.
Now let's dig into the actual verse: "If you delight yourself in the Lord, He will give you the desires of your heart." What does this mean? It means that if you are truly taking your delight in the Lord, if you are truly finding your deepest satisfaction in Him, if He is truly your greatest joy, then He will give you the desires of your heart. But if your greatest joy is He Himself, what would be your greatest desire? More of Him! You see, God isn't promising to give us trinkets that amuse us for a moment and then bore us, He's promising us something much better, something enduring, something much more amazing; He's promising to give us Himself. If we really believe that God is the most wonderful thing in the universe and we want nothing more than to be with Him, then this verse should make us rejoice! If we really long for Him and find our delight and pleasure in Him, He promises to give us that which will most satisfy us, most please us, most delight us; He promises to give us more and more of Himself.
Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.
This passage can be easily misunderstood, so I think the first place to start is to see what this passage doesn't mean:
What this passage doesn't mean is that if you delight yourself in the Lord, He'll reward you will all the things you've ever wanted. It doesn't mean that He'll give you a huge mansion, a Lamborghini and a private jet. It's pretty easy to see that God never promises to give us these things and it's also easy to see that a life totally devoted to God often has the opposite effect and ends in hard earthly temporary pain in sight of eternal glory.
So now that we've got that out of the way and know God isn't promising us a Lambo, there's one more thing that we have to look at before we can understand the meaning of this passage: God is the most satisfying, most pleasant, most wonderful thing in the universe. Only He can satisfy our deepest craving because He made us with those deep cravings for Him. Although it's often hard to see, and often we reject it, God really is the most pleasant thing that we could ever enjoy.
Now let's dig into the actual verse: "If you delight yourself in the Lord, He will give you the desires of your heart." What does this mean? It means that if you are truly taking your delight in the Lord, if you are truly finding your deepest satisfaction in Him, if He is truly your greatest joy, then He will give you the desires of your heart. But if your greatest joy is He Himself, what would be your greatest desire? More of Him! You see, God isn't promising to give us trinkets that amuse us for a moment and then bore us, He's promising us something much better, something enduring, something much more amazing; He's promising to give us Himself. If we really believe that God is the most wonderful thing in the universe and we want nothing more than to be with Him, then this verse should make us rejoice! If we really long for Him and find our delight and pleasure in Him, He promises to give us that which will most satisfy us, most please us, most delight us; He promises to give us more and more of Himself.