How Delightful! -

“Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you your heart’s desires.” Psalm 37:4 NIV

Who is your favorite person to spend time with? Who knows you the best? What is your favorite flavor of ice cream?

To take delight in someone means to spend time with them. To really take the time to get to know them and their ways. I know my best friend hates to swim, I know she loves tea and hates onions. She knows I love the color Navy Blue and hate cooking.

To take delight in someone is different than taking delight in something. I love Talenti Sicilian Pistachio Gelato. I would take delight in it every day if I could.

David, in the surrounding verses of Psalm 37, shows us 3 ways we can delight in the Lord.

Trust in the LORD and do good (vs. 3)
Commit your ways to the LORD (vs. 5)
Be still before the LORD (vs. 7)

But what about the desires of our heart? If we take a bigger look at the context of this passage we can see this is about the classic tension between evil and righteousness.

The passage starts out with the command: “Do not fret because of those who are evil or be envious of those who do wrong.” I think God might have known that we were going to have trouble with this concept. Have you ever been envious of someone who seems to get away with doing wrong while you tow the line and do what is right? God tells us if we trust in Him, commit our ways to Him and be still and wait on Him, we will be given our hearts desires.

The desires of our heart will be a given as to the righteous man in Psalm 37.

We will see evil being destroyed
Our inheritance will endure forever
Will will be able to give generously
We will not starve
We will inherit the land
When we stumble, we will not fall
Our children will be a blessing
We will speak with wisdom

We can stop being envious of those that do evil, they are not getting away with anything. Our LORD is just and keeps His promises. Let’s take a minute to be still before God and commit our ways to Him in a posture of trust.

Heavenly Father, we still our hearts before you as we commit our ways to you. Help us to trust that You know our hearts and that You desire to give us many good gifts. As the righteous man in Psalm 37, we also thank you for all the desires of our heart that You have so generously given to us. Amen

Bonus Info:

Have you ever noticed that the word LORD is sometimes in all capitals in the Bible and sometimes it is just the first letter that is in capitals? (Lord)

When we see the whole name, LORD, capitalized it means that it is referring to a particular personal name of the God of Israel, not to a generic name of God. This is referring to us taking delight in Yahweh, the God, and Father of Jesus.