Desires

Delight yourself in the Lord; and He will give you the desires of your heart.  Psalm 37:4

Desires – Is your God just a divine Santa Claus? 

The Hebrew mish’ala is here translated “desires”.  The root verb is sha’al, usually translated as “ask”.  We usually think of this verse in the following way:  if we take delight in God, God will give us those desires that our resident in our inner being.  We make God’s role one on fulfilling wishes that we already have.  God becomes our personal genie, a wish-granting provider, a heavenly Santa Claus.  But what if the verse says something else? 

Looking closely at the use of the root verb, sha’al, we find that frequently the verb describes the action of asking God for guidance.  The supplicant does not come to God with an intention in mind, asking God to fulfill the request.  Instead, the nuance is that the supplicant comes without the necessary direction and asks God to provide His instruction.  The supplicant is the one in the needful position.  But the wish is not to fulfill one of the already existing options.  It is to provide an option that is as yet unknown.

If we apply this nuance in meaning to the noun, mish’ala, we might argue that the sense of this verse is not the God fulfills one or more of the existing desires of the heart but rather than God will give us the desires themselves.  We stand empty, openhearted, delighting in His presence.  And we discover that God fills us with inner desires – His inner desires for us.  If my delight is in Him, I do not come with my Christmas list anticipating that He will supply my desires.  I come without anything but my delight – and I discover that He alters my heart so that I am filled with desires that reflect my delight in Him.

If this exegesis is correct, then we are suddenly confronted with this amazing truth.  The only way you can know what you can be passionate about doing is to delight yourself in Him.  Your passions, the ones that make up the excitement of your experiences before you stood in His presence, are no indicator whatsoever of the desires God will place in a heart willingly submitted to Him.  You will not find the passion of greatness by reading What Color is Your Parachute or any other of the dozens of self-assessment goal setting books.  You will only know the passion that God has intended to become the driving force of His purposes for you when you stand empty before Him.  He is not waiting to give you what you want.  He is waiting to give you your wants and then fulfill them.