What Does Your Heart Desire?
What are the desires of your heart? You know, those things you dream about, visualize, or imagine. Is the list lengthy? Have those things changed over time? We all have those things we long for. There is nothing wrong with longing. Often the things we long for are good and decent. A good job. A nice house. A circle of good friends. Influence in the community. Enough money to pay the bills, with a little left over. A happy and healthy family. All good and decent desires.
But sometimes our desires are fueled by selfish motives. A better paying job. A bigger house. More money. More fame. More power. It is good and decent to want adequate resources to provide for ourselves and our family. Where we run into trouble is when we desire more more more, more than we need.
As life and circumstances change, often so do the desires of our heart. What you or I desired two decades ago, two years ago, or even two days ago, may or may not be important to us today. Our earthly desires come and go. As priorities change, so do our desires. Constantly running after those changing desires is often fruitless, frustrating, and exhausting.
Today, I want to offer a different approach. I believe that our deepest longing, our deepest desire, is not wealth, power, comfort, but instead, to taste and see the glory of God in and through the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, God’s own Son. David, the writer of Psalm 34, writes this – “Taste and see that the LORD is good. Oh, the joys of those who take refuge in him!” (v.8).
I believe that whether or not we acknowledge it, or even know it, we all have a God-shaped hole in our heart, a longing that can only be filled by God himself. The writer of Ecclesiastes puts it this way – “He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end” (3:11).
The desires of our heart should first and foremost be a longing for intimacy with God. Our relationship with God is broken because of sin (Isaiah 59:1-2; Romans 3:23) and can only be restored by committing our hearts to the lordship of Jesus Christ, who died and was resurrected from the dead in order to restore our right relationship with God (Colossians 1:19-20).
We are told that if we trust in the Lord (which includes submitting and obeying), He gives us the desires of our heart – “Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:3-4).
Near the end of his life, Jesus said this to the disciples – “In that day you will no longer ask me anything. Very truly I tell you, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete” (John 16:23-24).
In both those verses, it is not a carte blanche (from French, meaning “blank document”) invitation for us to ask for anything and everything that satisfies us. Instead, the promise is that our desires will be granted if they fit into God’s plans and purposes for our life. If our hearts are looking for God to fill us, we will never be disappointed. There is nothing wrong with asking God for material or physical blessing, so long as our desire comes from submitting and obeying His will rather than feeding our own selfish will.
What does your heart desire today?
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