Desires of our heart

"³Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness.  ⁴Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart.  ⁵Commit your way to the Lord, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass."      Ps 37:3-5 (NKJV)

Don't we all have desires - some godly and some not so godly.  The wonderful promise that God will give us the desires of our heart is conditioned on us delighting in Him.  What does it mean then to delight ourselves in the Lord?  The verse preceding and following the promise found in verse 4 will offer a clue.  Both talk about trusting God; verse 3 adds that we need to feed on God's faithfulness, that is, we rely on God's character to fulfill what He has promised - He is a faithful God.  Trusting also means committing our ways to the Lord (v 5); this we do so through prayer.   When things don't turn out the way we envisage, we often give up praying and lose sight of His faithfulness.  Delighting ourselves in the Lord would therefore mean a continual trust and communication with God despite the circumstances of life.  God, who searches the hearts of all men, would grant us the desires of our hearts when He sees our total dependency on Him. 

Three OT patriarchs exhibit this quality of establishing intimacy with God with the result that God heard and answered their prayers. 

1. Abraham: he was called the friend of God because of his faith in Jehovah (Ja 2:23; Gen 15:6).  He believed God's promise regarding his descendants being as many as the stars of heaven despite Sarah being barren.  When God expressed His intention to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah due to the wickedness of the cities, Abraham interceded for Lot and his family.  He was bold enough to 'bargain' with God 6 times not to destroy the cities if there were certain number of righteous people present (Gen 18:23-33).  Unfortunately, there weren't 10 righteous people - Lot's family constituted only 4.  But the Lord was mercy; He remembered Abraham's intercession and saved Lot's family (Gen 19:29).   The desire of Abraham was granted.

2.  Moses: he spoke to God like a man to a man (Dt 34:10).  Of course, no one can see the face of God and live.  He must have seen the representation of God in various forms eg. the burning bush or a thundering voice.  He learnt humility through hardship and reliance on God.  Moses spent an inordinate amount of time in God's presence cultivating intimacy with Him.  He found favour in God's sight and as such when he requested God to show him His glory, God obliged by showing him His hind glory (Ex 33:12-23).  When Moses came down from the mountain, he face reflected God's glory so much so that he had to put a veil over his face (2 Cor 3:13).  Moses is another patriarch whom God delighted in, despite his sins.  We are told that God buried him in a valley of Moab and no one could locate it (Dt 34:6).    

3. Elijah: this prophet of God had developed such intimacy with God that by his word things are brought to pass. By his word, the armies of Israel were destroyed by fire (2 Kg 1:9-12).  This was so because he had a direct line of communication with God (2 Kg 1:3,15).   The many miracles that Elijah was able to perform attest to the great faith he had in God.  We are told in the book of James that Elijah was a man like you and me; he prayed earnestly and God answered him (Jas 5:17-18).  He prayed seven times before he saw a cloud the size of a hand in the horizon and knew that rain would follow.  Elijah's intimacy with God saw him taken up in a whirlwind by God, translating him from this earthly life to a heavenly one (2 Kg 2:12).  This is but a type of translation (rapture) that believers would experience when Christ returns. 

Do you have godly desires?  Then begin to delight yourself in the Lord, cultivating intimacy with Him.  
Abraham's desire was for the salvation (deliverance) of Lot's family from destruction.  We too can desire the salvation for our Friends, Relatives, Associates and Neighbour by interceding on their behalf.
Moses' desire was to see God's glory.  We too can desire and impart God's glory to others if we spend time with God. 
Elijah's desire was for God to send rain to a parched land.  We too can desire and experience the rain of the Holy Spirit in our lives if we earnestly seek after Him.

May God grant you the desires of your heart as you delight in Him!