Delights Before Desires

I came across a verse this morning, and it absolutely hit me.

I mean I’ve heard it a hundred times, but it hit me differently this morning. So I read it again. And then a couple more times.

That verse was Psalm 37:4: “Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.”

Quite honestly, one of the biggest internal struggles I battle with is guilt. I feel guilty for not being enough. For not doing enough. For not achieving enough. For not amounting to what the person to my right or left of me has done. I fall into this trap of believing that I should feel guilty for not doing enough for God.

When in reality… it really is a selfish mindset that leads me to believe that I need to do something to win the favor of God and those around me. I’ve always felt like I needed to do this big thing with my life in order for God to really use me. I still struggle with that very mindset.

But I read that verse this morning… And something spoke to me.

It reminded me that the delight comes before the desires.

God instructs us: “Delight yourself in me, and I will give you the desires of your heart.” Not the other way around! You can’t be focusing on accomplishing and succeeding at these desires and this purpose and plan you think that you have for yourself and then think that once you accomplish and succeed at those desires, you will finally be able to delight and be happy.

That’s not how it works.

Instead, God tells us, “Come to me. Know me. Talk to me. Get into my Word. Develop a relationship with me. Delight yourself in me! Find joy in this relationship that we have, because that is the purpose that I created you for! And then I will give you those desires of your heart!”

God is so above us. He is all-knowing. He knows you. And He wants you to know Him because He loves you so much. And He wants us to delight in that relationship with Him! Not to execute on this or that thing or cross off all these worldly things on our to-do lists.

And then once we do that… when we delight ourselves and find joy in this relationship with him, when the fruits of the spirit come and invade, then He puts those desires on our hearts.

He tells us who we are.

But it’s hard. When the world is shouting from Facebook and Instagram and billboards that you need to make this amount of money, look this way, have a successful side gig, climb to the top of the ladder, be this successful in order for your life to matter, it’s hard. 

But may I remind you that these earthly, worldly things are never enough. Because every time that we chase and pursue those things, those earthly, worldly things, we want more. There’s a void that’s never filled. 

That’s because God created us to delight ourselves in Him first and foremost. And then you know what comes after? Those desires that He puts on our hearts. Not for selfish ambition, not to have our names be known, not for another thing to be put on the resume. They are godly desires that are beautiful and eloquent. They are desires that are postured correctly in our hearts and minds.

But we’ll only discover those things if we delight ourselves in Him first.

Think of it this way: You don’t walk into a school classroom as a kid on the first day and have the teacher say, ‘Alright, figure out how to get an A+ on a project.’ No. What the teacher does is instructs the student to come and sit down and learn. To be still. To understand the concepts and the lessons. To try and get the student to delight in it. And then the students take that information, the things they’ve learned, the delight, the relationships with their classmates and teacher, and then they have a better understanding of what they want to do their project on. With a lot less frustration I might add.

It’s the same way with God. He doesn’t command us to strive. He commands us to sit. And then promises that the rest will come. He doesn’t want us to try and figure out everything on our own.

We can look at that verse as saying, “Delight yourself in Him, and He’ll give you what you want.” Or we can take it as, “Delight yourself in Him, and He’ll show you what you want.” 

He will reveal to you what you want. He will give you what He knows that you need.

But only if the delight comes before the desires.