A common passage.  A treasured promise, for me and many others.

Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.  (Psalm 37:4  NIV)

Have you noticed the focus often placed on “… he will give you…”?  Because we want the desires of our heart.  I know I sure do.

But…

The other part comes first… “Delight yourself in the Lord and…”

They are not disconnected, as much as we try to do that.  It is more like ’cause and effect’.

So, if I am sitting around expecting the desires of my heart to materialise without delighting myself in the Lord then I might as well keep on dreaming.

Placing our primary focus on God is ridiculously difficult because we really just want to focus on self.  When we delight in the Lord there is no room to delight in self because God is just soooo big.

And what of the desires of our heart?  He’ll place the best and truest ones within it, while we’re busy looking at Him most likely, and then He’ll delight in giving those desires to us.

You know, it does make sense.  After all, it is the desire of His heart for us to delight in Him, to know and love Him.

Just some Thursday morning thoughts as I wake up… in more ways than one.