From Despondency to the Desires of the Heart

Psalm 37:4 "Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart."

I grew up reading the Bible and becoming very despondent about being told that we can hold to the promises of God with 100% trust. God does not lie, and his promises are "Yes" and "Amen" (2 Corinthians 1:20). I did not see this passage fulfilled in my life, not even in the small areas where God could have patronized me to build my faith. When I addressed this with other believers, I was told the problem was me and that it most likely stemmed from having too little faith.

I was sure I had the kind of faith that would move a mountain (Matthew 17:20). Then I questioned what faith is and how do I know I am believing or delighting, that I might get my heart's desires, or whether I have the little faith that God rebukes? I was so confused. I practiced the disciplines God gave us in His Word. I observed all that Jesus taught and acknowledged my sins when I recognized them. My asks were not greedy or covetous, so what was the problem? As I delighted in the LORD, why was he not giving me the desires of my heart? This question almost drove me to abandon my faith. The disappointment I encountered in my relationship with God grew so deep that my heart grew weary, and my desire for communion with God began to wane.

It was my godly husband who told me I was the problem, not my faith, but the practice of my faith. I was believing something the passage does not communicate. I wondered whether that was his way of excusing God for failing him, or whether he had been forced to learn what the passage was accurately encouraging. As I searched the Scripture for clarity, I recognized the latter was true. I, too, was forced to learn the true exhortation of the passage. God loved me enough to care about the despondency growing in our relationship and wanted to help me understand the truth behind the promise with accuracy.

A few other passages of Scripture began to bring clarity to what Psalm 37 calls "...the desires of your heart." I will only address two, first, Hebrews 13:20-21: "Now may the God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, the great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you complete in every good work to do His will, working in you, what is well pleasing in His sight, through Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever, Amen." Here we see that it is God who is "working in you" to "do His will." He works in us to get from us "what is well pleasing in His sight." This does not happen automatically in us. We know that the author of Hebrews addresses the conditions for the Saints to live in order for God's work in them to work out of them. As they obey the requirements set before them, as followers of Jesus, God is working in them to "do His will." The passage says, God is working to "make you complete in every good work." The works we are being "perfected" in, another word for "complete," were delineated from verses 1-19, which begins, "Let brotherly love continue." Love is the Christlike characteristic that heads all the following commands.

Then in Philippians 2:12-13: "Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure." There is powerful instruction in these two verses that opened my eyes to the promise in Psalm 37. God was beginning to reveal to me that my expectations were my problem. I held to God as a genie in a lamp, as an eternal Santa Claus, as the accompanier to my faith. He was to run to my beckoning call, because this is what the passage said, "to me." Sadly, not only to me, but to many believers who misbelieve about God and the things he has not promised. Many have misbelieved, become angry, and did not allow God to disabuse them; instead, they walked away from their faith, believing God is no more powerful than wishing on a falling star. What people don't understand is that when we hold God to a promise we have misconstrued, we are wishing on a star, and that is why the position we are holding, hoping God will respond, goes unanswered. That was not God's failure, but ours. It is not because our faith is small, but because it is out of focus.

I pray that I can help you, as God helped me with these two verses, especially, but there are more. Both passages express, "make you complete in every good work to do His will," and "for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure." Each passage must be read with the aforementioned instruction given in reference to it. The writers are both instructing in the same vein as "Delight yourself in the LORD..." They speak of conditions that believers must walk in as we follow the example of Jesus. As we obey the instructions or commands given to us, God begins to help us complete the good work by causing us to will and do the things that please Him, things that bring Him good pleasure. His good pleasure becomes our delight, and we walk more in line with the work and will of God, obeying more closely His desires.

God began to teach me that as I delight in Him, in other words, "working out my salvation with fear and trembling," God begins to work in me, changing my earthly lust and covetous desires and causing me to align my wants with His, and becoming more content with heavenly outcomes. This is building my treasures in heaven, while I slowly opened my hands to let go of the things the enemy can steal and moth can corrupt. The desires of my heart began to line so closely with God that I stopped identifying what I want for what He wanted for me. I had to learn what he wants from Scripture. My desires begin with loving God, then "letting brotherly love continue." There is no place for my self-centered, self-aggrandizing desires, because my desires become His. He works in me and you for this end.

This is how God took me from despondency to giving me the desires of my heart. Those desires are actually His. They became His as His Spirit taught me to build my treasures in heaven and not on earth. I still pray for stuff. I offer God my list of those to heal, those to bring to salvation, those to return, the things that give me pleasure, but those all are addressed, "according to His will." What I know about those prayers, according to 1 John 5:14-15, "This is the confidence we have in approaching His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have what we asked of Him."

The difference in this passage and Psalm 37:4 is that in 1 John, I pray and leave those I am praying for in His hands. In Psalm 37, I put myself in His hands. The blessing is that I am closer to God than I have ever been. Understanding what the Bible actually teaches makes all the difference. Believing with expectation for God to do something He has not promised will leave you despondent. Though he will not leave us there if we cry out to Him for understanding. Once we align our faith with the truth of God's promises, He will give us the desires of our hearts.