Delight thyself also in the LORD; and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart.
—Psalms 37:4
God is love, an ever flowing fountain out of which streams the unceasing desire to make His creatures the partakers of all the holiness (see Hebrews 12:10) and blessedness in Himself. This desire for the salvation of souls is God’s perfect will, His highest glory.
To all His children who are willing to yield themselves wholly to Him, God imparts His desire to take His place in the hearts of all men. It is in this that the likeness and image of God consist: to have a heart in which His love takes complete possession and leads us to find our highest joy in loving as He does.
It is thus that our text finds its fulfillment: “Delight thyself also in the Lord” and in His life of love, “and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart.” You can be sure that the intercession of love, rising up to heaven, will be met with the fulfillment of the desires of our hearts. As we delight in what God delights in, such prayer is inspired by God and will have its answer. And our prayer becomes unceasingly, “Your desires, my Father, are mine. Your holy will of love is my will, too.”
In fellowship with Him, we acquire the courage to bring our concerns before the Lord in an ever-growing confidence that our prayers will be heard. As we reach out in love, we will obtain power to take hold of the will and the blessings of God. We will also begin to believe that God will work out His own blessed will in giving us the desires of our hearts, because the fulfillment of His desire has been the delight of our souls.
We then become, in the highest sense of the word, God’s fellow laborers. Our prayers become part of God’s divine work of reaching and saving the lost. And we learn to find our happiness in losing ourselves in the salvation of those around us.
Dear Father, teach us that nothing less than delighting in You and Your desires toward men can inspire us to pray correctly or can give us the assurance of an answer. Amen.