Delighting in the Lord and being...content!

 
  I should never be surprised at how God works in my life but sometimes I am. This last Sunday I drove to Kansas to stay for a couple days with my job. I left in the afternoon so I would still have some rest time after church. While in Kansas I went to church and what do you know? The message was just for me! I was late getting into town so I was 20 minutes late but in the 30 minutes I was there God reminded me of things I tend to forget. So I'll share those with you here.

The message was on one of my all-time favorite passages: Psalm 37:4, 5

"Delight thyself also in the LORD; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. Commit they way unto the LORD; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass."

  The entire chapter is about resting in the Lord and trusting Him. I found many wonderful things in the entire chapter but for tonight I'll only focus on verses 4 and 5.

A few thoughts from the message and some of my own:

1) Delight - we delight in so many things: sports, movies, sleep, food, people, shopping, etc. Our delight ought to be in the Lord. It's interesting how often we say we "have" to go to church or "have" to read our Bible or "have" to pray. We ought to delight in those things. The more you do those things the more you'll delight in it. To steal a line from Nike, Just Do It! Pick up your Bible and start reading, bow your head and start praying, get out of bed and go to church! God will bless your efforts and give you a delight to do those things. We all struggle in these areas at some point or another - I know I have - but God can and will help us through it.

Personal example: I have struggled to have a consistent prayer life at different points in my life. It's like things are going fine so I don't really need to pray. Things in my life are going pretty well right now, in fact, so my prayer life hasn't been all it could or should be. I decided I needed to work on this. It's been neat to watch God answer different prayers in just a short time. There is no prayer too small. I've prayed different nights for God to help me wake up early/on time and help me make the right decision to get out of bed. He has made sure to wake me up and He nudges me to make that right decision but sometimes I think 5 more minutes of sleep is better. But I can always thank Him for waking me up. That may seem like a silly example to some people but it is a very big deal for me. If He cares about my smallest prayers I know He'll answer my enormous prayers! It's been really fun to spend more time talking with my Heavenly Father especially since I know He is listening.

2) Verse 4 also says the He, God, will give us the desires of our heart if we delight in Him. Are all our desires good for us? No, of course not. So what does this really mean? The closer you are to someone the more you want what they want. You want to see their desires met and see them happy. It's the same with in our relationship with God. The closer we are to Him, the more we delight in Him, the more our desires will line up with His desires. He may replace some of our current desires or He may give us the desires of our heart. It's hard to let go of our desires and allow God to have them. God's plan for our lives is so much better than we could ever imagine though! We need to always remember that He alone sees the big picture. We just need to trust Him.

Personal example: My deepest desire is to someday be married. God knows this and He knows if this will or won't happen. Right now I am trying to focus on serving God and keeping Him first in my life. God has given me so many ways to serve Him in my local church and right now while I'm single is when He can use me most, in some ways. I don't have anything holding me back from serving God except what I allow. So often as single women, we get discouraged thinking about prince charming that hasn't arrived yet. We get so impatient we forget to enjoy the journey. Each step of our lives is intricately designed by God. We can only see the backside of the tapestry but He sees the masterpiece. It's ok to be single and serving God. Don't allow Satan to trap you in discouragement and despair. There is always a purpose in the seasons of waiting no matter where they occur in your life.

3) Another thing the preacher talked about was contentment. I do not like that word! :)
Content = Satisfied with what one is or has; not wanting more or anything else.
Are any of us ever truly satisfied with what we have or what we are? We say "I wish I look like so and so" or "I wish I had curly hair" or "I wish I had a new car" or "I wish I were married", etc. That's human nature but we must fight against it! God has blessed each of us more than we deserve. I have a job, a home, a car, family and friends, the ability to do things, and so much more! Those things alone should make me thankful. Being content is a decision. I have to decide to be content in my apartment. I have to decide to be content in my job. I have to decide to be content being single. Decide to be content with where God has you and with the people and things He has already blessed you with. In His perfect time and according to His will He will add people and things to your life. Maybe someday He'll even add a special person to my life! But first I have to decide to be content.

"Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee." Hebrews 13:5

God bless,
Linda