Desire

“May He grant you your heart’s desire and fulfill all your counsel!”  Psalm 20:4

Desire – When it comes to matters of the heart, the Psalms are rich with metaphors.  But just like English, the idea of “heart” often has nothing to do with the organ that pumps blood.  In Hebrew, levav is used most of the time to describe three important aspect of human personality:  the will, the emotions and thought.  When we read the literal rendering of this verse, we get a better picture of the connection between lebab and these three parts of being human.  The verse really says, “May He give you what is as your heart”.  May God give you the gift of what is according to your will, thoughts and emotions.  That is quite a present!

What are the real desires of your heart?  What really describes how you feel, think and act?  And what if God actually brought those things into being?

At first we have this flash of expectation.  Oh, wow!  Wouldn’t it be great if everything I wanted happened?  But take a minute and think more deeply.  What are the implications of fulfilling your desires?  Remember the stories about a genie who grants wishes.  Often the wish became a curse because the one who made the wish didn’t understand how wish fulfillment would affect other parts of life.  Fortunately, God is not a genie.  He knows that some of the things we think we want will really turn out to be curses.  It’s happened to me.  Things that I thought would be so wonderful ended up creating nothing but heartache.  I didn’t see the backside of desire. 

God is a careful giver.  There are times when He lets us have what we think we want, just like there are times when a good parent lets a child have something that will turn out to be a lesson in mistaken judgment.  But when it comes to the really big things, presents that are good for us demand that we first get aligned with what God knows we really need.  When my desires revolve around His purposes, then I am ready to have them all fulfilled.  It’s all a matter of the heart.