Psalm 37:4—A Heart’s Desire Met through Delight

Each and every heart has desires. Desires can be typical necessities, like food, water, or a safe haven to abide in, but then there are desires that are deeply indwelled within the secret places of our hearts. Such a place only those closest to us or only God knows. Jeremiah 17:9 exposes how…

“The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it?” Jeremiah 17:9

With that being the case, how then can we navigate knowing what is correct for us to desire, or what we should let go of to make room for something else?

Psalm 37:4 offers us a framework of what it looks like to properly see the fulfillment of the desires of the heart. Although it is a verse that is often taken out of context, when we dive into truly looking at what it means to walk this verse out it is there that we find the greatest delight of all: God.

What Does it Mean to Delight in the Lord?

“Delight yourself in the LORD; and He will give you the desires of your heart.” Psalm 37:4

Do not be mistaken in thinking that this verse is one that will grant you any and every desire of the heart, rather, first dedicate yourself to learning what it truly means to, “delight in the Lord.” Skip Moen explains the Hebrew word for delight, “‘anag” as, “Delight – This word (‘anag) is used for a garment that is delicate or luxurious. Here it means to feel great favor toward something. But notice carefully the object of our delight. It is not His forgiveness. It is not His rescue. It is not His blessings or promises. This verse makes it clear that we do not delight in something God has done for us. We are delighted in His person – in who He is. Just like a fine piece of silk, the delight is not because of what can be done with the cloth, but because the cloth itself is so marvelous. The subject is desirable because it is attractive in and of itself.”

What a beautiful reminder this is to us not only in prayer, not only in laying our requests before God for desire, but in remembering what it means to be in communion and relationship with God. Our delight shifts from merely finding satisfaction and joy in the tangible items we have been given, in the actions on our behalf, or anything but delight in Who God is in Himself.

God desires to have an authentic, real, and genuine relationship with us. That has been the framework and desire of His heart since Eden, for we must remember that He walked among them in the “ruach” or the wind of the evening with Adam and Eve (Genesis 3:8). That was His intent then and it is now as we are offered the opportunity to know Him intimately and fully through Christ Jesus as Salvation and pure relationship with the Lord in all things. To delight yourself in the Lord is not just standing in gratitude for all He has done or all He has given. It is important that we operate in a place of gratitude for we should be filled with thankfulness before Him, but to truly delight in Him is to find satisfaction of our souls in Who He is, not what we can get from Him.

Potter and the Clay Heart Transformation

As we delight ourselves in the Lord and we offer over our hearts to Him it is there that we no longer cling so desperately to our own wills. We are not without sin, and we must fight the fleshly urge to attempt to control or demand an outcome, but we can surrender our own wills to Him. This is where God can do His best work within our hearts, aligning us with His Own heart.

Consider the metaphor in Jeremiah 18:4, “But the vessel that he (the potter) was making of clay was spoiled in the hand of the potter; so, he remade it into another vessel, as it pleased the potter to make.” At times God will change our hearts from desiring one thing to do something entirely different, but we must trust Him. God gives us His desires so that they may become our desires, this is part of what delighting in the Lord looks like in action. What is vital to recognize is that we place our trust in Him through this process. Very rarely will it appear like what He is asking us to do makes logical sense, will feel good, or be something we would prefer but if we knew all He knows we would rejoice in letting go of our own preferences. Skip Moen phrases it well when we are met with doubt and fear of lack, or of missing out on what we think we ought to have. Moen offers, “I need to see that God is my life; that no one else and nothing else can come between us and that my true joy will be found only in Him.” When He is our true joy and when He molds, shapes, and transforms our hearts a trust is forged between the Potter and the Clay. Though we may be squashed, crushed, and altered we can allow it to happen without resistance for we know such sanctification is for our benefit, for we trust and delight in the Potter’s hand.

How are Hearts Desires Met?

“Delight yourself in the LORD; and He will give you the desires of your heart.” Psalm 37:4

The second half of Psalm 37:4 offers that He will give us the desires of our hearts. The Hebrew word for give is, “nāṯan” meaning, “to give, put, or set.” We can trust that God will fulfill what He intends to in our heart’s desires. It may take decades, it may be through great and terrifying lengths, but we can stand firmly no matter what it looks like that He will be faithful to His promises.

A great example of this is through the story of David. David was promised as a teen that he would one day become the King of all of Israel. This made no logical sense for he was a scrawny runt of an adolescent anointed by Samuel while a perfectly healthy king with sons sat on the throne. Years would pass and David would be met with trial after trial, storm after storm, and mess after mess, yet he stood firm in the promise of what God had said. The desire of his heart was not on the throne, but rather he was a man, “after God’s own heart” and his desire was in Who God is ultimately. His delight was in and through God, and he rested in knowing that even if it did not look as he perceived it would, God was still good and still sovereign. Although at nearly every pivot point of David’s story it looked like he would never see the fulfillment of the promise, God kept His word and David was made king of Israel. Let us draw encouragement not just through the story of met desires, but of what it looks like to delight in God above the promise.

His Divine Will Over our Limited Scope

God has a greater lens over our lives than we do, and it is imperative that we trust His ways are higher than our ways (Isaiah 55:8-9) and for good reason. We must know as well that He can work not just some things, but all things together for His ultimate purposes and for our benefits in the same work (Romans 8:28). Lastly, we must ground ourselves in rooted faith that He knows what He is doing, and we will see an abundantly greater story than we would have ever written come to pass as we forgo our own ambitions and ideas and yield to allowing Him to write upon our hearts His desires for us to have within.

Delight yourself in God, allow Him to mold and shift you, and see that He has good plans, ones that you will be surprised how much you love. Recall as well that God knows us far better than we know ourselves, He made us after all, so in trusting Him even if it seems illogical, we will experience something far better than we even knew existed. Let Him drive and be surprised at the destination of the journey. Lastly, know that the greatest desire He will meet of all is in richly knowing His heart through experiencing Him. There is no greater delight, no greater glory, and no greater gift than knowing the One Who made you intimately, and there finding that indeed He will give you the desire of your heart, for your heart was made to desire God above all else and He has graciously given us Himself to know.

Resources:

https://skipmoen.com/2012/11/what-do-you-want-1/
https://skipmoen.com/2012/01/fine-silk/
Blue Letter Bible New American Standard Edition