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May 15, 2010-"Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart"...oh really? Perhaps one of the most maddeningly ambiguous verses I've ever read in the Bible…I cannot read this and not feel somewhat "fleeced" by its authenticity - that, or my interpretation is skewed; the latter being more likely. Firstly let's touch upon "desires of your heart". The Bible repeatedly describes the fallenness and general depravity of the human heart and goes as far as saying it is "incurably wicked". Why then would David regard the desires of our hearts in a positive connotation here? Because we know it would violate God's immutable character for him to give us our "sinful" desires of our hearts, there must then be righteous desires in some capacity. This doesn't necessarily refute the Bible's adamant declaration that the human heart is wicked due to inherit sin, but it does seem to indicate that it isn't wicked all the time. Perhaps vestiges of our pre-fallen state still exist? Ok that's fine - I can handle that. Well what does "delight yourself in the LORD" mean? What an odd command. How do you delight yourself in something? It's the sort of ideal that seems to be completely non formulaic and ethereal. Like you cannot prescribe how per se to delight yourself in something…it just happens. You delight yourself in your wife, but you can't quantify how you got to that point; you just do. The lack of any sort of tangible or coherent description of how to get to "delighting" yourself in the LORD is frustrating. That said, am I frustrated because I merely want to delight myself in the LORD as a means to an end…a selfishly motivated end? It's even more odd, the blessings of the desires of your heart seem to flow from the delight…meaning one that truly delights in the LORD does so just because, not because God promises to give you the desires of your heart, or that they expect him to. It's just sort of an added bonus. Yet this idea goes against our innate understanding of "to get something, you gotta do something". This more is "just do something". Honestly I'm not sure why the writer added the "he will give you the desires of your heart" part. There's too much incentive there for people just to try to delight themselves in the LORD so they can get the desires of their heart. Yet those people are just doing it for themselves and miss the point altogether. Why didn't David just say "Delight yourself in the LORD"? Why add something that is too tempting to take selfishly? Isn't a statement like "Delight yourself in the LORD" enough already in and of itself? I think the worst part of the verse is the word "will"…perhaps the most flustering use of an auxiliary verb ever in the history of grammar. I believe God. I believe everything he has to say…because 1)He's proved himself so far and 2)Who else is more qualified to believe about life, love, and why? (two very reasonable points) Myself? Ha! We're all hopeless wrecks and you and I know it. That said, if God says that if I delight myself in Him and he will give me the (presumably good) desires of my heart…well then the million dollar question surfaces…how come I still have unfulfilled (good) desires lurking? Or worse yet, how come I can't "accept" the pseudo-desires of my heart he's seemingly already given me? I've surely delighted myself in the LORD many a passing moon, yet life has yet to satiate me in certain ways (don't get me wrong, spiritually I'm plenty satisfied…overly in fact). Which brings me back to the idea of desires of our heart. Can we actually have pure, good desires (sometimes it feels like I only have impure desires, or pure desires skewed or tarnished by impure add-ons)? I mean take the desire for companionship/marriage? A good, righteous desire right? Well wait; let's look at it from a different angle. Maybe it's actually bad. Why shouldn't I be content by myself? Isn't God enough? Why should I desire something in addition to him? Surely he who finds a wife finds a good thing, but what guy can say he wasn't at all selfishly and insecurely motivated even the slightest bit during that search (answer = none)? Paul said himself we can serve God better as a single right? Why would he say that unless marriage/companionship debilitated us in some way from serving God wholeheartedly? Maybe the marriage "desire" is unfulfilled because it is indeed not a totally righteous desire, but a selfish, insecure one. That would exonerate the verse as to why certain desires seemingly live unfulfilled…right? I don't know how else to explain it. Either that, or God's a liar. But I've eliminated the latter posture already. Or it's the third possibility; that this verse is more than meets the eye…much more. It really isn't your simple "Oh that's a nice and encouraging Bible verse for your daily Bible calendar on your fridge that you bought at the Christian bookstore" then. It is a statement about God's character and our interaction with a being that steps in and out our reality with non-relative ease that is many layers deep. I can only surmise my understanding of what David was saying here (though his personal understanding may have been a simple "point-and-click" type) is woefully inadequate and misinterpreted. So where to go from here… Just pull an "F-you man upstairs" and go try to fulfill my heart's desires, good or bad who cares, the best I know how? That would be an extremely impulsive, childish response. Should I just keep trudging along just accepting it and keep telling myself to have more faith? Maybe, but that sounds pretty superficial also. No I don't think the answer is to turn my back on a superior God with enigmatic declarations (because what would be a superior god without enigma beyond us? He'd be a pretty lame superior being), but I also don't think blind acceptance is the answer either, because that just produces stifled and pent up frustration and underlying anger regarding something you don't truly believe in anyways. What's the alternative then? Divine skepticism? I don't know, but that doesn't seem to be a really joyful way to live. Perhaps it's somewhere inbetween my two aforementioned extremes? I just don't know. Can I trust this verse is true? Yeah I think I can. But as to real-life application and the presupposed "if-then" Boolean statement of it all…forget it. I cannot wrap my head around it nor reconcile it with what I know to be the, often tragic, realities of life and God's character. One of the most seemingly simple verses in the Bible has become one of the most maddening conundrums to my Christian walk. I'm lost on Psalm 37:4. In your ocean, I'm ankle deep I feel the waves crashin' on my feet It's like I know where I need to be But I can't figure out, yeah I can't figure out Hey now, this is my desire Consume my like a fire, 'cause I just want something beautiful… I'm waiting for something beautiful Oh, something beautiful |
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