By David ReayWednesday 16 Feb 2022LifeWords DevotionalsDevotionsReading Time: 2 minutes
Trust in the Lord and do good. Then you will live safely in the land and prosper. Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you your heart’s desires. Commit everything you do to the Lord. Trust him, and he will help you. He will make your innocence radiate like the dawn, and the justice of your cause will shine like the noonday sun. (NLT)
We may sometimes find ourselves wondering why God does not grant our heart’s desires. Why we don’t always get what we ask for even as we believe it to be a good and godly request. Anyone who comes up with a neat and easy answer to that needs to be installed in the Christian Hall of Fame!
There is no easy answer as to why some seemingly good desires do not get granted. But this Psalm offers a hint of one way of looking at it. Our desires are granted as we delight in the Lord. It is assumed that as our heart’s desires are more and more aligned to the heart of God, then there is a greater chance of those desires being granted. If I trust in him wholeheartedly, I can expect his help.
If I lose myself in delight of God, then what I desire is more likely to be what he desires. While we may have many worthwhile desires, not all such desires are going to be fulfilled. We can recall Jesus, when on earth, said he only did what he reckoned the Father wanted him to do. Hence his ministry was consistently fruitful. Among all the good he could have done; he chose to do only what his Father wanted doing.
None of this resolves all issues of so-called unanswered prayer. But it does remind us that rather than barging in and insisting God grant our requests, we spend some time and effort on aligning our hearts and minds and wills with his own. This does not involve frantic attempts to develop fervency and purity. It means we pause to consider the character of our God and what he desires. What he desires can then more become what we desire.
Blessings,
David