What Do You Desire?
“Delight thyself also in the LORD; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.” Psalm 37:4
I was walking down my little country road one day with one of the ministry’s dogs singing to the Lord aloud, offering up a mix of prayer, chit chat, and praise when I found myself declaring to Him the desires of my heart aloud. After years of waving my magic wand at God and essentially begging Him for this or that, for whatever on earth I felt would fulfill my desires at the time, I realized my desires had entirely changed. They were no longer of the earth; they could only be satisfied from heaven. Never in a million years would I have imagined that someone with the history of desires I had had could be so utterly transformed in this manner.
God, I desire to love you, I began. I desire to praise you. I desire to worship you. One by one, I told God what have become my greatest desires. I desire to glorify you. I desire to live for you. I desire to revere you. I desire to adore you. I desire to walk in your ways. I continued. I desire to walk with you. I desire to hear you. I desire to obey you. Did I actually say I wanted to obey the Lord? Yes! God, I desire to honor you. I desire to spend forever with you. Still more. I desire to sit at your feet. I desire to come before your throne. I desire to talk to you. I desire to be in your company. I desire to be in your Kingdom forever, and already am. Though I could not recall every desire I named, the point was clear. Only one desire had to do with the earth at all, but even this one was birthed of heaven. I desire to tell the world about you to help build your Kingdom.
God had transformed me from a lost, broken, miserable, hopeless, sin-ridden woman with a history of childhood sex abuse, post-traumatic stress disorder, self-mutilation, addictions, suicidal despair, abandonment by two husbands, tragedy after tragedy just to name a tiny bit of my long history of trials, who wanted nothing more than to escape the pain and satisfy her lust to be loved and accepted, in and out of bars and beds, who lived for herself and none other, to a godly woman of love, hope, joy, peace, and thanksgiving who wants nothing more than to love and serve the Lord forever and to tell the world about Him. He had taken away my desire for earthly treasures and the fleeting satisfaction of human, imperfect relationships and replaced it with a desire to be in fellowship with Him forever and to help others love, serve, glorify, magnify, and enjoy Him forever also. He had given me new and righteous desires – desires I know assuredly He will satisfy because they are for His glory! What do you desire? Is it time for new desires?