Every Woman's Desire
There was a time in my life when I considered myself a follower of Jesus, yet my desires were not fully reflecting the transformation of mind that comes with a life submitted to the Truth of the Bible. I was still looking to the world around me to fulfill desires and satisfy the cravings in my heart for love, acceptance and fulfillment. I knew very little about what the Bible said of these matters therefore, I never looked at myself through a Scriptural lens. As a result, I spent many years seeking approval from people and trying to be “good enough”. In some ways I believed that if I tried harder and achieved more, I would be accepted, desirable, lovable and perhaps worthy of love. I had no idea that the desires in my heart were meant to be filled by Jesus. Nobody had ever taught me that if I do not find my fulfillment in Christ, that I would seek to find it elsewhere in the things this world offers, whether it be career, hobbies, or even relationships and I would be left striving for more, never fully satisfied.
The Bible says in Psalm 37:4 to “Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” I have heard this piece of scripture many times in my life but it is not until recently that I began to understand what it really means, how it is connected with Biblical identity, and why what we believe to be true about this verse affects how we live life as a follower of Jesus.
When we desire to find our fulfillment in Jesus and when our heart thirsts to know and love Him more than everything else in our life, He truly does grant us the desires of our heart because those desires are submitted to Him. This doesn’t mean we don’t love our family and friends or that wanting to be a wife or a mother is wrong. Nor does it mean being goal oriented and having a desire to be successful is necessarily a bad thing. It simply means Jesus is meant to be our first love and the overflow of that first love is to see everything else in our life more clearly. One of the beautiful things that begins to happen when our desires begin and end with Jesus is that everything else in our lives, all the priorities and responsibilities, have a way of falling into place. We are told to Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind (Matthew 22:37) and to Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added unto you (Matthew 6:33). When we desire, above all else, to Know and Love Jesus, we begin to better understand who we really are. As a result, we are not entering into friendships or relationships seeking something from those people but rather, we are free to love with pure motive. We no longer make decisions in life (jobs, hobbies, daily schedules etc.) based upon what we can get for ourselves, as if we are lacking something. Rather, we begin to make decisions based upon how we can honor Jesus and what He wants us to do. Above all, we begin to realize that we have been made complete (Colossians 2:10), and that the deepest longings of our heart are fulfilled only by Jesus. There is something wonderful that begins to happen when our hearts desire begins to turn toward Jesus first. It is an indescribable joy to finally find the one whom our soul loves (Song of Solomon 3:4).
You may be wondering how do I practically delight myself in the Lord? One way I would encourage you to begin is by getting to know who God is! Just like any other relationship, we have to spend time getting to know someone before we fully trust them and begin to genuinely desire their presence. It would be difficult to truly delight myself in the Lord without knowing Him and we get to know the Lord by reading the Word of God (the Bible). The “Who Is God?” button below provides a great resource to help you get started, covering the Character and Attributes of God along with scripture references. I would encourage you to spend time asking yourself how you can DELIGHT IN and TRUST IN each of these aspects of God’s character as you study and reflect upon them.