Take delight in the Lord,
and he will give you
the desires of your heart.
Psalm 37:4
A week ago today, I wrote a devotion on this very same passage. I got a great response back! One person interpreted the passage entirely different from me. And now I’m not sure which I believe!!!
Here’s how I first read it:
In my heart are desires.
While I may want a few worldly things – yes – what I really want are: light instead of darkness … hope instead of despair … peace instead of conflict … and joy instead of sorrow.
In other words, what I ultimately desire is heaven!
Therefore, how this passage reads is … 1) When you take delight in the Lord (i.e. have faith) … 2) God will ultimately give the desires of your heart (those who live by faith will go to heaven and our deepest longings will be satisfied).
That is true! But this friend pointed out a new truth …
Here’s how my friend read it:
God is wants to “give you” something.
In fact, when you come to faith in him and when you delight in his ways, he will give you a new gift. He will place new and godly desires in your heart!
Wow! That’s true, too, isn’t it?!
On our own, we live by the flesh. While we do have some spiritual desires (we are after all made in God’s image), we also have our feet in the quicksand of fleshly desires too. On my own, as Paul used to describe, I have a weak and broken body of death.
But when I come to faith – and when my faith yields and gives God more and more room – he will put more and more godly desires into my heart!
In this broken world, we’ll sadly and always have a mixture of both – the spiritual and fleshly. But I want a God who is more active (the second definition) instead of passive (my first wait-til-heaven definition)!
In Christ’s Love,
a pastor who is not God
… and loves to be taught
by you all!
No comments:
Post a Comment