First Things First

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

According to Merriam-Webster, the definition of delight is “1) A strong feeling of happiness: great pleasure or satisfaction or 2) something that makes you very happy: something that gives you great pleasure or satisfaction.”

So, what does it mean to “Delight yourself in the Lord”?

If we place these definitions in place of the word we would discover that we find great pleasure or satisfaction in the Lord. That seems pretty simple right?

Then, why is it so difficult?

Is it possible that we take the verse from above and reverse it? Is it possible that we wait for God to give us the desires of our heart, then we will find delight in Him?

It seems like this is the Christianity that is taking hold of many. We lose faith when our desires aren’t met. We only look to God to provide for us, and only if He does will we take pleasure in Him. We love to look to God as our provider, but if He doesn’t provide what we want, then He is not as good of a God as we thought.

This is a dangerous gospel.

David places the words Delight yourself in the Lord first because that is what needs to be first. Our pleasure and satisfaction needs to be in Him and not the things He gives us. We should be resting in the fact that we have a God who has given us life and a relationship with Him through His Son our Savior and that should bring us the satisfaction we need in life.

When we put the first thing first, then the desires of our hearts will come.

The great thing about God is He has so much mercy and grace that He will give some things to us, even in our flawed perspective or broken nature.

Why?

He knows our battle with the sinful self. Our sinful self tells us God is only good when He gives us things. He knows our sinful self tells us we deserve to get things because we are “good people”. Our sinful self finds delight in things, not in the Creator of all things. He is patient with us.

This is not an excuse for us not to pursue the first thing first. We must find delight in God first because He delights in us.

In verse three of the Psalm we read these words from David, “Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.” Again, the first thing is “Trust in the Lord and do good” through this, the direct result will be living in the land safely. Through the trust and delight in God, we experience safety and the desires of our heart.

What more should we delight in?!

God is and should be our main source of satisfaction. Not because of the things we receive, but for the fact that He is God, our glorious Creator who has given us life and hope in Him.

An interesting final thought: Perhaps when we find complete satisfaction in God, our hearts desires will be His desires, so our satisfaction will continue to be Him and not things!

May we find happiness and satisfaction in our Creator. May be satisfied in Him and Him alone.

Peace and blessings friends.

QUESTION: Do you find complete satisfaction in the Lord?