". . .your heart's desire."

Psalm 37:4 "Delight in the Lord and He will give you your heart's desire." This has long been my favorite verse. I find myself singing it throughout the day, reminding myself to focus on delighting in Him and occasionally, I must admit, checking and re-checking what exactly is on the "HD List". The older I get the more changes I notice in my heart's desire list and to be honest, the fewer items there are on the list. I think about the verse, the list and mostly the delighting--often. In fact, most of today was spent in revelling in the joy that comes from belonging to Him and being one of His! Not a day goes by that I am not blessed far, far beyond that which I deserve and yet, He keeps giving and blessing and loving me all the more.

As I was thinking about this today, I had a phone call from a very old friend. She is not a member of the church, much to my sadness, but our friendship has remained true. As is her custom, her phone call began with the new car she'd purchased, then progressed to the house they are building once they return from their cruise. Over and over again, intermingled with lists of more and more new purchases, she told me just how busy and how very happy she was. She said that for once in her life, she "had almost everything she wanted" and she said "it must be Karma".

It was interesting that like me, she also had her heart's desire. It made me think. I wondered if perhaps everyone gets what is on their list. Okay, I didn't wonder it for long--after all, I am a social worker. Well, perhaps she'd simply adjusted her list to match what she already had----nah! That is the secret to contentment and I didn't mention that she still had some things on her wishlist. So, how could it be, that both of us, living entirely different lives, could both be content and both feel we had received our heart's desire?

I remembered that we'd had similar conversations in the past----and her list five years ago had many of the very same items on it. She was in love (different husband, that time), they had just purchased a new Escalade. had moved into a new house and were planning a trip to Vegas. If I remember correctly, even then, she thought she'd received "almost everything she ever wanted". And she sounded very very happy--truly she did--both times.
And so I wondered, if she wasn't ever really happy---or if she just became unhappy? Or if her tastes changed? If the joy she felt just went away and her heart no longer desired the same things. No, I think what happened was the things she delighted in, the things that brought her joy were earthly things. Earthly things, according to scripture, are disposable and corruptible. So it would make sense that should it be corruptible things that delight our hearts, the feeling of joy and contentment would be transient and sort of up for renegotiation, if you know what I mean. I believe we can convince ourselves to be happy--that we can talk ourselves into believing our life is good when it is really not and that we can be convicted that a new car, a new dress, a new attitude, a new man, a new address, whatever, will be just what we need to get just what we want. And as we continue to delight in worldly things, it is the worldly desires that get fulfilled-----and then fade away.

Notice the part of the text that tells us just who to delight in--"Delight in the Lord"---and when we do--our heart's desires change---when we focus on the spiritual--it is the spiritual things that make us happy! And as we continue delighting in Him, He delights in giving us our heart's desires. The desires of a spiritual person--the desires that never fade and never die--for they are eternal, redemptive and beautiful.

Blessings,
Neva

PS--Thank you for your prayers--I am doing well--unless this post makes absolutely no sense to anyone and then . . . I am still on pain meds! :)

n