The house was quiet, the room was still, and I was sitting in my hand-me-down recliner in the corner of my bedroom arguing with God. “I don’t want to pray that!” I kept repeating. “Not again. And NOT about that.” My spirit crumbled as I approached my Father like a scared little girl with my eyes to the floor. “Please don’t make me do it.”
The Lord was gentle. “I’m not making you,” He reminded me. “I’m asking.”
There is a verse in the Bible that often gets misinterpreted. “Delight in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart” (Ps. 37:4). For years I understood it to be that God will grant my deepest desires. It wasn’t a god-genie philosophy, because I knew that God was not in the business of granting wishes like some eternal shooting star. But my deepest soul-desires, the ones like the desire to be married, the desire to be a mom, the desire to use my written words to encourage others, those, I was certain, He would fulfill if I delighted in Him.
It wasn’t until I saw this verse in a different light that I began praying differently. “Delight in the Lord and He will [create in you] the desires of your heart.” This verse is not a promise that He will fulfill your desires. It is a promise that He will create, grow, nurture and strengthen the desires that He wants for you to have.
There have been a handful of times that I have been hesitant to follow the Lord because I felt He was leading me in the exact opposite direction from my deepest desires. In those cases, my response has been, “Lord, I do not want to follow you, but if this is where you are leading, I will follow you out of obedience. I just pray that you would change my heart so that I can follow you out of desire as well.” In every case, the Lord began working on my heart so immediately and so certainly that I began wanting and dreaming of things that I had never even imagined.
This is why I didn’t want to pray, yet again, for God to change the desires of my heart that day in my recliner. I was afraid He would do it! And I knew that, in this case, if God changed the desires of my heart, it would affect everything.
I’ll be honest. It took me a few days before I could honestly pray that God would give me His desires, even if it meant in exchange for my own. But I finally did, fully expecting that by doing so I’d be walking away from the familiar into the scary world of the unknown.
Over the next few days, I was keenly aware of my heart. “Are you changing it, God? I don’t feel you changing it. Why do I still have the same desires as before? I thought you were about to rock my world, but I don’t feel any shaking. What am I missing here?”
After many days and much more prayer, at last I came to realize why God prompted me to pray for the desires of my heart. It wasn’t because He wanted to change them, at least, not now. It was to remind me that even the God-given desires of my heart still belong to Him. They are not my desires given to me by God; they are His desires living in my heart.
Foolishly, I had come to believe that if God had placed a desire in my heart, it was mine. Mine to chase. Mine to develop. Mine to protect forever in the name of the One who gave it to me.
But now I know better. They are mine only to sacrifice.
You are one brave girl, Emily! Thanks for teaching and sharing!
A little over 4 years ago, I began to pray, “Deepen my prayer life, Lord, and change it to the way YOU desire it. Teach me how to pray more effectively (Jms 5:16).” A few days later, God showed me things that changed how I prayed. I still continued to occasionally pray that prayer thinking “I know there’s more”. Then one Sunday morning I was listening to a sermon and the pastor said we need to pray like Jesus prayed: “Not my will but Yours be done.” I thought, “Not that again, Lord.” (I used to avoid praying that or I just prayed it “cautiously”.) But then I decided to be brave and pray it boldly. To my surprise God impressed upon me that when I present my petitions to Him and then tell Him, “Nevertheless, not my will but Yours be done,” and mean it, my prayers become even more powerful. He said, “I know how to give you something even better, related to what you are asking for, and when you leave it up to Me you’re proving you really do trust Me!”
Hi Emily.
This subject is particularly dear to my heart as it was a part of the most defining subject in my life.
After years of giving well over a 100%, in everything I did, literally I finally realized there didn’t seem to be anything else I could give ……………..except my whole heart. Not just a part of it but the whole thing. All the hurts, the pain of rejection, the pain of “failure”…… And the list went on. But my Will was strong & I fought long as I’d been taught.
I was crying out yet pushing back & away. Until one glorious morning, in utter dismay & bewilderment, it came. And it came in waves then floods of sweet surrender & understanding of my hearts desires & His heart of desire for me.