Delight yourselves in the Lord, and He will tend to your heart’s desires. - Psalm 37:4

This is one of my favorite verses. If you take delight in the Lord (and that’s easy to do!), He will tend to the desires of your heart. So does that mean He’ll give us everything we ask for in prayer? Not necessarily. The scripture doesn’t promise that God will give us everything we ask for, but it does say that He will tend to the desires of our heart.

A listener recently called in to our local Christian radio station to share about how she had prayed for a couple years about her family’s finances, their car problems, bills they had to pay, and things her family needed. She became frustrated when she didn’t feel that her prayers were being answered and she found herself upset with God. While sharing her frustrations in prayer, she felt God asking her what she truly desired in life. She answered that her true desires were for her children - that they would be healthy and do well in life. As she responded, she realized that God had known what truly mattered to her and had indeed been looking after her children. She was quite moved by this experience, especially since it was the first time she felt God personally in her life.

This experience changed her heart and her outlook. She began praising God as she saw the many ways He’d been blessing her. She’d been too focused on the negatives to see the positives. And then an amazing thing happened. As she started trusting God with her deepest desires, He began to help her in other areas of her life. Their financial situation has now greatly improved and, as she has continued to praise and trust Him, He has blessed her in many other ways, too. Are you finding delight in the Lord? Praising Him? Spending time with Him each day in prayer? Staying in His Word? If so, then you can be assured that He is tending to the true desires of your heart and probably blessing you in many other ways, as well. Discovering this truth for yourself will give you true happiness and a lasting contentment that the shiny, earthly desires of our hearts can’t give.

Dear Father, Keeper of our hearts, I pray that each person reading this message can find reasons to take delight in You, and that as they do so, they will find happiness knowing You are tending to their innermost desires. Help us to trust You to know what we truly need, and to be content with the blessings You choose to send our way. In Jesus’ Name, Amen. Renee Myers, 11-30-06