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

This is possibly my favorite bible verse.  Even though it took me a while to understand it completely it is near and dear to me.

Teenagers (including myself) are selfish, it’s true. Our desires are simple, our motives pretty clear and our world a fragile balance between popularity and materialistic happiness. Take away our cell phone and our life as we know it is over!

While this is shallow and seems harsh on paper, it’s more often than not the truth. I don’t know if people grow out of this, or if they just hide their selfishness better than immature teens. People are people; we want things that don’t matter past this life. A nice house, money and a healthy life.

When I first read this verse my eyes saw what I wanted them to. ‘The Lord will give you the desires of your heart.’ I thought this sounded fantastic and got out my check-list

• God do this
• God do that
• God I need this
• God stop doing that
• God please let that person move to another country

As if the God who created the sun and gave us his son was going to follow my plans.

Proverbs 16:9 “In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps.”

I think most people (like me) skip over that first little part ‘Delight yourself in the Lord and…’ Now that I read it and understand what it means some of the things on my checklist don’t seem so important anymore.

The Lord does incredible things! When we are following Him closely and dedicating ourselves to Him whole-heartedly we want what He wants.

For example I didn’t want to be home schooled. In fact it was that last thing I wanted. But God knew that for me, it was the best possible thing. The Lord has completely changed my heart in that way. I started to want what He wanted for me. I delighted myself in Him and He changed my desires.

For a while I sat there crossing my arms pouting because God didn’t do what he said he would do! But really I didn’t follow his word or I would know that it was me who was the problem and not God.

Are you delighting yourself in the Lord, filling yourself with His joy? Or sitting there wondering why you can’t have what you want and think you need?