Blackaby hits on a truth I am going to invite you to truly embrace and on which I invite you to spend some time reflecting personally. That’s what I needed when the Lord brought this home to me.
The verse: Take delight in the Lord, and He will give you your heart’s desires. Psalm 37:4
In my earlier “read through” of this verse, I just looked at it as one that affirmed the Lord would provide me with things that truly “delight” me – my heart’s desires. Turns out, I really didn’t ‘know’ my heart’s desires as well as the Lord did. Nor did I know what I needed as well as He did.
I have always loved a view of the Colorado mountains but I always was living in a neighborhood overgrown with trees and lower in elevation, so I could only glimpse a little peek through some deciduous trees across the street in the winter when they were bare — just a hint, just a peek, at a mountain top.
So when I was driving somewhere that took me to a higher elevation and a grand view of the mountains, it would pull on my heartstrings and I always said I wanted a house with a view of the mountains. For several years, I did a drive through Burger King (they had Dr. Pepper) and get a sausage biscuit breakfast, park in a store’s parking lot that had a view of the mountain range, and do my morning devotional before heading on into work. (OK, ease up, I eat and drink a whole lot healthier these days!)
Well, that view happened! A little over 10 years ago, we downsized and moved to a more rural location in a terrain that allowed us high elevation so I could have a deck view south seeing Pike’s Peak, Sleeping Indian and the beginning of the Front Range mountains. I LOVED that view – sat out on the deck as often as I could, kept the windows free of shades as often as I could and enjoyed it immensely.
BUT…a day came when I was doing my deck-sitting and loving the view when it hit me. What I REALLY loved was the “sky”. That huge blue background (had a good 180 degree view of it) and the clouds that I intensely enjoyed watching form, change and move. As hard as a lightning bolt, it hit me! It’s not the mountains so much as it is “the sky”!
You see, I grew up on a cotton farm in West Texas. Flat, full view all around with every inch of the sky and weather in sight. We had a screened-in front porch (with rockers) and we lived on that porch. Truly! In rain storms or cold times, we wrapped in quilts and watched the weather happen. As farmers, the weather made or broke us – so every potential rain cloud was important and thunderstorms were huge potential to wipe us out in one hailstorm.
So watching, praying, crying, rejoicing – all tied up with what was happening in that huge sky around us — dominated our lives. And kept us leaning on the Lord for everything He sent us via that sky full of action (or not). And lots of my parents’ friends, neighbor farmers, and company would stop by – rock, drink black coffee and speculate on the weather while watching everything forming as they visited.
And total dependence on the Lord! His power was amazing and all-encompassing.
Yep. The Lord knew me better than I knew myself. He knew what was really drawing me was the view of the sky. Tracking the clouds (those beautiful, ever-changing, ever-amazing constructs). And seeing the weather slide down south on our side of the Front Range, turn left in the sky at the Palmer Divide, and head out east to do “it’s thing” along the way. I loved it. And it kept me in perfect relationship with the Lord who I knew was the author and finisher of everything that happened in that sky and in my life. I could rest in His providence.
But here is the statement pulled out of this lesson by Blackaby that challenged me (and yes, I am pitching it your way, too). He said “Your relationship with God ought to bring you more joy, satisfaction, and pleasure than any other relationship, activity, or material possession you have.”
Wow! I knew that viewing the sky, watching the weather progression, getting that enormous reminder of how Great was my God was also inspiring, encouraging and settling for me. And Blackaby’s statement brought it to the forefront.
This scripture tells me to find my greatest pleasure in God and the things dear to His heart. I don’t want to tell you what is really on my Amazon-type list of what I think will bring me pleasure. Embarrassing. Revealing.
Here’s where I invite you to do what the Lord reminds me to do over and again: Sit – and Soak! Think through what I have to keep doing. Instead of asking the Lord to give me the desires of my heart, I need to first seek to understand what is on His heart.
My prayer must be to first seek His priorities and make them my own. Think that will kick the stuffing out of selfishness? Most definitely.
But the most powerful thing that happens, as Blackaby points out, is this result:
As you spend intimate time with God and allow Him to show you your situation from His perspective, you will begin to see things as God sees them. As you adjust yourself to God, your heart will begin to desire the same things God’s heart desires.…As we find joy in the Lord, we will see what is truly important, and we will long for these things as the Father does.
May we do some “sit and soak” time with Him this week, and find our true heart’s desires are being provided by our Father who knows us best.
