Delight

So, for the last few years a verse that has really just stuck with me and ministered especially to me is Psalm 37:4 "Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart."
Funny thing is that for most of my life I didn't really understand this verse. See, like a lot of Americans today, I was only too willing to turn to God when I wanted something. This verse, if anything, really supported that theory... Problem is, theory that is untested is just that... theory. And goodness knows that I never really tested it! So here I was stuck with a notion that if I wanted the desires of my heart, all I had to do was delight in the Lord. Okay, so not that hard, right?
WRONG!!!
First of all, I was reading the verse backwards... it doesn't say that in order to get the desires of your heart delight yourself in the Lord; it says delight yourself in the Lord and then you'll get the desires of your heart. I was going about it the wrong way. See, God isn't some sort of pop machine where you put in the change and make your selection, and out pops your choice soda... God actually desires change in our lifestyles, thought processes, and general outlook... which takes us into point #2...
Secondly, so if we put it back into the right order and look at how we are to go about it... We are delighting in the Lord in the beginning. Okay, so what does that look like? And how does it affect the outcome? Well, its just like this... When we delight, and I mean really delight, in the Lord, He is in the business of changing our hearts. Yeah, so what was the desire of your heart... maybe not so much anymore! God is good about doing things like that!
Thirdly, as much as God really loves His children, He really isn't the kind that is only interested in us getting the desires of our hearts. See, He is also a really amazing loving Father, and He knows that sometimes what we want is not always the best thing for us. So then when we start delighting in Him, the desires of our hearts are taking back burner... and sometimes when they are back there just simmering, they start to boil dry. Suddenly we really don't want them anymore. Then we are free to throw out our silly desires, and ask God what He has to fill our pots. Or, we realize that He is also in our desires and we aren't to be giving them up... but maybe He has a different spice to add, or a different time schedule for simmering that desire. Somehow it always turns out better when He is the one doing the cooking!