Delighting myself-part 1

I just finished blogging my vacation in 7 parts, and now I am starting to blog my Beth Moore weekend in 7 parts! For anyone who attended, I have waited until this has sunk in before blogging about what I learned-or to be more correct, it is still sinking in, but writing about it will help me.

The passage that Beth talked aobut this weekend was Psalm 37, particularly verse 4:

"Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart"

Although a popular passage and one I have always heard taught correctly in terms of when you delight yourself, then your desires will be God's desires, etc, I was still able to be taught new lessons about this verse and life in general.

The first point mentioned was "nothing dictates our lives like our desires". In other words, at the end of the day, I am going to do what I want to do! If I want to watch a TV show, I will usually watch it. If I want to go to the gym, I usually pack up the boys and go. If I want to go out to a nice restaurant, well, that doesn't happen too often! But you understand!

What I want to learn from this point is that I really do need my desires to be God's desires. I need to spend more time in prayer, so I need to desire that time with God. I need to stop more often and play with my boys, so I need to desire that more than cleaning up the dishes (although I don't know if I could say that was a desire-playing is much more fun!); but sometimes the desire to have things done so that I can have time to myself at night without chores staring me in the face gets in the way of play.

So what do I do with my desires? I want my desires to be God's; to come from God. But is my desire for staying in shape a desire from God or just one of vanity? One thing I learned is to lay my desires before God. Desires are things you wait for. True longings are desires that do not change regardless of surroundings. While I am waiting for what I think I desire, something I have been desiring a long time, I need to give it to God and let Him either give it back to me, or change it.

That is where I am now! Point 2 takes some gnawing on in my mind, but with more meditation and prayer, I am sure I will be able to grasp the point. In the meantime, I think I desire to read Psalm 37 again and then go to sleep!