One of my favorite Bible verses has always been Psalm 37:4:

“Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.”

I mean, how can you not like getting “the desires of your heart”?

Of course, there’s the utterly selfish way of interpreting that verse. It goes like this: Do whatever you feel like and He will give you the desires of your heart.

That doesn’t work. I tried it. You probably have too. But God is too good to work that way. First of all, God wants us seeking and delighting in Him. He’s a jealous God. He’s not into sharing us. What He said to Moses still applies today: no other Gods, no idols. Period.

Second, to give us the desires of our heart, God must first give us His desires. He’s not in the business of giving us whatever we can dream up, but as we delight in Him, He gives us His desires, which He then graciously fulfills.

To delight in the Lord simply means to find pleasure and enjoyment in Him. To be honest, that’s not easy, at least for me. My life can easily be filled with many other delights. Some are really wonderful. Some are merely distractions.

Delighting in the Lord begins with a choice. It’s a decision to put away our lesser gods and idols. It’s an intentional decision to seek God and delight in Him more than we delight in our other pursuits…work, hobbies, relationships, food, sex, movies, the internet and any number of things. None of these things are necessarily sinful…just distractions if we let them be. Lesser gods. Idols that call us to delight in them. These things are gifts to enjoy, not idols to worship or gods to serve.

All of that brings me to a desire God gave and fulfilled twenty-four years ago today. On this day in 1985 in south Louisiana, God gave me a wife who has been, continues to be and will always be the desire of my heart. She is the greatest earthly blessing in my life. Robyn is my counselor, my partner, my friend, my lover, my playmate. She’s an amazing wife and an awesome mother to our four children. She’s a gifted leader and communicator. I am encouraged and challenged by her life.

If I’d never read the Bible and knew nothing about God, but had to tell you what I thought He was like based only on the wife He has given me…I would tell you He is good. He is kind. He is loving. He is gracious. He desires only good for me. He enjoys laughter and pleasure and fun. He wants more for us than we can even comprehend.

I would tell you I believe God gives us the desires of our hearts when we delight in Him.

Happy anniversary, Robyn. May there be many, many more…