“Take delight in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.” Psalm 37:4

If this is true, then we need to know a couple of things – 1) how do we delight in the Lord and 2) what even are the desires of our hearts?

Delighting in something or someone is to experience great pleasure and joy. All too often, we’re duped into looking for satisfaction anywhere but God.  How do we make God our source of pleasure? John Piper sums up delighting in God as “seeing and savouring him as infinitely admirable, embracing him as your dearest friend, Savior, caring protector, provider, and thirdly, receiving with thanks and worship everything he gives you.”

And what about our desires? Philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) asserted that human desire is the fundamental motivation of all human action. There is something about desire that goes beyond just ‘want’. The sense of longing that an individual experiences is so strong that it exceeds wishing and stirs the person into action so that they might obtain their goal.

C.S. Lewis said, “It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

If we put these two together. If we are truly delighting in the Lord – seeing and savouring him, embracing him and responding to him in worship and thanks – then our desiring of him will increase – our pursuit and hunger for intimacy with him will stir us to action – and He in turn will give us the desires of our hearts. He gives us himself. Your heart will always pursue what you value as your treasure (Matthew 6:21), make Jesus your treasure. Make Jesus your pursuit. Make Jesus your delight.