Delight Yourself

"Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart."(Psalm 37:4)

Several times this month this passage has come to my attention. When that happens I usually stop and think what is God trying to tell me.

It's the same feeling I get when I run into old friends over and over again in a short span of time when I haven't seen them in ages. I always think there has to be a reason either for them or for me to act upon.

Once a friend of mine was in a minor accident but ended up in the hospital. I hate visiting in hospitals for a number of reasons, but this time I wanted to go see my friend and found the heart nudge one I had to act on. I wanted another baby and she had experience with being a foster mother so I thought maybe she could tell me about that as a possible solution for my baby longings. I was not overly concerned that she was sick. I went to visit her for my own selfish reasons. She was so happy to see me and we really did have a great visit catching up on lots of things. The next day she died from a blood clot that went to her head. I was so thankful to God that He put that nudge in my heart to go see her. From that day forward I've always listened to my heart nudges.

Spiritual nudges are about the same thing, or maybe what I've called heart nudges are really spiritual...messages from God of a sort. I know God talks to us by using people, places, events, books and yes, even rocks. Thank goodness we don't have to wait around for the burning bush experience. Anyway, my mind is bouncing around this passage about delighting yourself again this morning.

Yesterday I tried to pass it on to a friend but it's still sticking with me this morning. In Bill Barber's message last night he quoted the same passage and challenged us by saying that many times we only hear the part about Him giving us the desires of our hearts, not the part about delighting ourselves in the Lord.

I'm thinking this morning that it's one of those if/then pacts with a twist. While we are doing the IF part, God is changing the THEN part. Oh, I know this is true from personal experience. When I was young I thought more about getting material things. Now that I'm older, I'm learning that while all those material things are nice, they aren't what is the most important. Maybe what God is trying to cement in my heart is that if I delight myself in Him, the desires of my heart will be His will. What a twist to find that what we think is the desire of our heart is not since the desires of our heart changes as God works in our lives.