Today, Tuesday February 14
“The Desires of Your Heart”
Psalm 37:4
“Delight yourself also in the LORD, And He shall give you the desires of your heart.”
Happy Valentines Day! This is indeed a special day where we express our love for that special person or persons in our lives. When I came into my office early this morning there was a special card and a bag of DeMet’s Chocolate Caramel Nut Cluster Turtles on my desk from my wife Edith!!!!! But I wasn’t the only one she expressed her love to. She made a special Valentine's Day gift of cookies, candy, and a note to all of our 18 grandchildren, our children, and also another special gift to all the children at Friendly Community Baptist Church in Burgaw where I am the interim pastor. She wanted them to all know they are loved and are special.
I’m talking about a special gift for each child! It took her tons of hours to bake the cookies, decorate each cookie special, and different than the rest, and then put each one in a special gift bag for the children and family members! Now, my friend that is a wonderful expression of her loving sacrifice to others. I have the most wonderful wife, mother and grandmother in all the world! She lives to “delight” in others and make them feel loved. By the way, you don’t have to guess who they go to first when they come to visit us. Well, it’s not me!
I’ll guarantee you that if you delight and love others you will be loved in return. Jesus said, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you!” Why, because that is exactly what is going to happen! The way you treat others is the way you will be treated.
As I was meditating on our verse this morning, “Delight yourself also in the LORD, And He shall give you the desires of your heart”, I began thinking about what it means by “the desires of your heart”. What is the deep-down desire of the human heart? I’m convinced that the real desire of a human heart is not money, not clothes, not a bigger and nicer house, not fame, not success, not fun or happiness, and not even having children born into your family.
I believe God created us with a great yearning and desire to know, and feel like we are loved! I’ve heard a wealthy, successful, famous grown man say, with tears in his eyes, on public television while he was being interviewed about his success and accomplishments, that he would give it all up to have his wife and family back. He got what he thought he wanted and lost what he had that really mattered. And that is to be loved and respected for who his is, not for what he had. Sadly, that is the case with tons of people today.
This verse in Psalm 37 gives us the secret to experiencing the “desires of our heart”. It says we should delight ourselves in the LORD. The Bible teaches us that “the first and great Commandment is to love the LORD our God with all of our heart, with all of our soul, with all of strength and will all of our mind. And the second is like unto it, we are to love our neighbor as ourselves.” (Matthew 22:37-39). When we truly delight ourselves in the LORD as I have been talking about the last couple of days, we will discover that love will find us.
I have often said over the years, if you are married, your love and delight for the LORD will be reflected in the way that your wife delights and loves you. If she is no longer delighting in you, like when you first met, maybe you should check out our much and deeply you are delighting in the LORD.
I’ve also said many times that you don’t have to look for and try to find friends. I really feel sorry for people who are always saying, “I have no friends”. My answer to them is, “Be a friend to everyone you can, and you will discover that friends will find you, and you will have more friends than you can imagine!
Yes, my friend, God is love and when we love and express our love to Him first, we will have no difficulty sharing that love with others around us, and then we will in reality, experience the “desires of our heart”. We will know that we are loved as God loves us through the people around us! Jesus said it this way, “By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another" (John 13:35)
Not only will the world around us see the reflection of God’s love, but we will ourselves will have the deepest satisfaction in our innermost soul knowing that we are loved! The greatest “desire of our heart” will be satisfied and fulfilled!
God bless!