“Take delight in the Lord,” says the Psalmist, “and he will give you the desires of your heart.”

This is a deceptively easy passage. The fog of western, individualist consumerism however urges us to read this as God simply handing us whatever we want, regardless of its origin, intent, or wisdom in the attainment thereof.

Indeed, God does give us what our hearts desire. But, the beauty and deft insight of this verse is that the heart changes in accordance to what brings delight. As it becomes more centered in the Divine, it leans more readily toward the faces who line the hallways of our lives.

We soften toward their plight, and glow with pride in the accomplishments of others. It begins to shatter for the things that shatter the heart of God, in whom we delight.

And even suffering begins to make some small sense as it becomes contextualized against the larger picture of God’s redemptive enterprise, an enterprise into which we are invited, baptized, and transformed. It is out of that transformation which come the heart’s deepest desires, doubts, despair, dreams, and destiny.

The next time we quote this marvelous gem, especially during this holiday season, let us attend to its more ultimate direction. Let us lean into the God who, in Christ, becomes all our desire and through whom our deepest desires, plunged into the raging love of God’s heart, are fully satisfied.

Car photo found here

Communion photo taken at Yakima Covenant Church (where I am proud to serve as music director)