Desires

Desires of my heart. If I delight myself in the Lord then He will give me the desires of my heart. 

Hmm…what if that means if I delight myself in Him, and still want those new croc boots, then He will give them to me? What about the cruise in the Med? Where did I get those desires in my heart?

Or if I’m delighting myself in Him, they will change, so He knows that and feels safe saying He will give them to me? Pondering these things.  Maybe I need to look at the verse in real life instead of just the version that’s sprouted in my lil’ brain.

Psalms 37:4 - Delight yourself in the LORD; And He will give you the desires of your heart. NAS

Psalms 37:4 -  Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He will give you the desires and secret petitions of your heart. AMP

Psalms 37:4 -  Take delight in the Lord, and He will give you your heart's desires. NCV

Even after looking at those I still have this little question mark in my mind: what if it means that if I delight myself in Him, He will GIVE me desires in my heart, as in plant them there? Not the desires that were there at the beginning of this project (you know, the croc boots!) but the ones He planted?

Let’s take it a little farther down the road and brainstorm about what desires He would plant, if He were the one doing the planting. (Exit croc boots….)

Top on the list might be a desire to truly love every person I meet. To have a heart full of compassion and forgiveness.

Ranking pretty high would be a love of truth and a desire to both know truth, His truth, and to communicate only truth in all my dealings.

What if my heart’s desire included all the fruits of the Spirit? If that’s what my heart wanted most of all? (Boots? What boots??)

What if this verse is all about God planting His desires in the soil of my heart, and then tending them so they grow?

This is becoming a prayer: Oh Father! Plant Your desires in my heart! I want my heart to be filled with wanting what You want more than any desire for anything else. Let me desire the things that please You, that make Your heart smile…

In this mode, do those boots even show up on the chart of heart desires?  Didn’t think so. 

Go!

This is not about answering the call to be a missionary to Africa, so you can relax.

It's about waiting around for the right words, the right plan, the best program, the newest acronym, the full understanding of the situation. Or it's about NOT waiting around for those things.

Now you've read my number one hindrance  to prayer described above: waiting for the right or best or newest way to "do prayer."

Instead, God's message to me these days is, "Go! Start talking to Me. Spit it out. Tell me everything in your heart. Tell me all the confusion, all the paths you see, all the scary stuff, all the frustrations. Tell it in your words, with your heart, with your whole self engaged. Just. Talk. To. Me."

So, I'm walking away from the acronyms, the tried-and-true formulas, the specified patterns for prayer, and even from the prayers in the book that really are nice to read aloud. And will GO running into the safe place where my Father is and tell Him everything. All of it. Without organizing anything. Refusing to try to make my words fit anything. Understanding that it's me He loves, not my clever words. I'm stopping the hesitancy to say anything before I'm sure I understand His will so I can ask "according to His will."

I'm stopping all these so I can run like the wind as I GO straight toward the One who knows all my tangles anyway, and who will listen and help me untangle, and who will answer the real needs of my life, whether I manage to be articulate or not.  Come to think of it, I'm dropping that articulate thing too. I'll just GO to my Father and rest there, trusting Him with all of it.