# The Desires of Thine Heart Inspirations for Youth Language: en Author: by Laban Landes Lakeville, OH Original issue: The Heartbeat of The Remnant, Spring 2021, Number 1 Source pages: 25–27 Read article: Original PDF: Spring\-2021\-Remnant\.pdf [The Heartbeat of The Remnant, Spring 2021]() *Delight thyself also in the LORD; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart –Psalm 37:4\.* Down deep within every person is a desire to be, or to do, something of value\. If we, as humans, had no desire to do anything, life would be boring, and we would be nothing more than a robot\. We all know that God wants more from us than to be a robot; He wants us to serve Him with our whole heart\. The meaning for the word desire is: to wish or long for; to crave; to want\. Wish, want, crave, and covet all mean ***to have a longing for\.*** Desire stresses the strength of feeling and often implies strong intention or aim\. Isn’t that what God wants from us—a desire with craving and intentional aim? Yes, it is, but this doesn’t happen on its own, nor does it happen automatically\. Our desires are so strong that of ourselves we are no match for them; we need something outside of ourselves to be in control\. According to the Bible, we must become born again\. When we get born again, we become a new creature in Christ with new desires that God puts inside us\. The way He does this, is by giving us a new heart\. God allows each of us to choose if we will serve Him or if we will not\. He will not force us to yield ourselves to His will, nor will He force us to serve Him\. But, if we are truly born again and serve the Lord joyfully and willingly, then He will give us godly desires which we will want to fulfill\. Does the Christian life become like clockwork just because we get a new heart and our desires have been turned towards serving God? I believe the answer is both yes and no\. After we are walking with Christ for some time, we discover that Satan wants to change our desires in such a way that we would rather please him \(Satan\) instead of the Lord\. Because of this, we need to be on guard\. Satan wants to set spiritual snares for us\. One of the ways he does this is by enticing our flesh\. There are good desires and bad desires\. Some desires will bring us closer to Christ and some will draw us away\. As Jesus walked on this earth, we know that His desire was to do the will of His Father\. Out of His desire, He stayed focused on what He needed to do, even when His flesh was weak\. There are two examples of this: one was when Jesus was tempted in the desert to make stones into bread, and the other was when He was in the garden praying right before He was crucified\. When we look at the account in the garden, we see that He did not want to take the cup that was before Him\. In other words, Jesus *desired* to not go through the suffering, but praise God, He chose to please His Father\. He laid down His flesh, obeyed the will of God, and allowed Himself to be crucified for our sins\. Jesus looked at the long\-term effect, and poured Himself into what He knew was right, rather than going by His own feelings\. However, He did acknowledge His feelings by expressing them to God when He was praying in the garden\. It is the same way with us—there are times that we need to be honest about our feelings and express them to God or to someone else\. Yet we cannot walk by our feelings because we must act and do what we know is right according to the word of God\. *Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life –Proverbs 4:23\.* If Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived says this, then we should take heed to it\. The desires of the heart will make a difference on where we will end up in life\. As we are fulfilling one of our desires by acting on it*…with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength… –Mark 12:30*, we actually feed that desire, causing it to develop into an even deeper longing and passion\. As we then act on this stronger, passionate desire, we end up feeding that desire even more\. Thus, the vicious cycle continues, repeating itself again and again\. Instead of feeding your desire, you can choose to hinder it—by acting against it\. If you have a desire that is not good, and you need to change it to a godly desire, you can act against your original desire and do what is right\. In so doing it will start to change your bad desire into one that is right\. *For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also –Matthew 6:21; Luke 12:34\.* *And he said unto them, Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth –Luke 12:15\.* Covetousness is an ungodly desire\. Without bringing it into check, it will become a snare\. Money is something that we all need, yet it is something that almost everyone at some point in life covets\. Every day we spend much of our time working in some way to earn money\. In so doing, our heart’s desires tend to become focused on our work\. Instead, we should see our job as a way of doing God’s work by being a light and encouragement to the ones around us\. *And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him –Colossians 3:17\.* Here and there we hear a lot about coveting money; however, we don’t hear much about coveting positions that are not lawful for us\. It is not wrong to desire leadership in business or whatever it may be\. In fact, it is a blessing for others if someone will stand up and provide leadership as a way to bless others\. However, it is a wrong desire to want leadership for our own reputation, which is pride\. We are all human and we are not perfect, yet we need to rise above our weaknesses and be a blessing\. We all know that God gave each of us different gifts\. Let’s use those gifts for the kingdom of God\. Sometimes we are trying so hard to fulfill our fleshly comforts that we lose sight of the real purpose that God has put us here\. Our flesh stands in the way\. It was this way with Achan\. Instead of Achan putting his whole focus on the fight against the enemy, he said that, *When I saw among the spoils a goodly Babylonish garment, and two hundred shekels of silver, and a wedge of gold of fifty shekels weight, then I coveted them, and took them… –Joshua 7:21\.* I don’t know what it was like, but I picture there being loud noises and a bloody mess\. If that’s the case, what was Achan thinking in the midst of a bloody battle that made him covet? The only thing I can think of, is that Achan’s number one desire was not on God’s will but was on fulfilling his own desires\. It’s very sad that there were so many of God’s people killed because of Achan’s sin\. If we see that we have a desire that is not godly, then let’s flee from that desire and work towards gaining a desire that is godly\. ![An engraving of Achan taking spoils during a battle]() We see it is important to develop a godly desire that will encourage or lead us closer to God\. The most important desire is to truly know God\. That would be very close to the greatest commandment—to love the Lord thy God with all thy heart\. To love the Lord thy God with all thy heart you obviously also need to have a *desire* to love Him\. However, there are times in our life that we will need to take a specific action or purpose to love God with all our heart\. There are many things that God may want us to surrender\. We all know that peer pressure influences our desires\. We need brothers and sisters to walk beside us and encourage us in our relationship with Christ\. Friends can draw our attention to something other than Christ\. That is why we need to be careful who our close friends are\. We need to seek out friends who will be upbuilding\. A friend that can walk beside us and encourage us in our walk with God, is worth everything\. As humans, we can’t always see everything correctly by ourselves\. We need others to help us see our blind spots\. A close friend who genuinely wants to help us follow God, will help us look at what is right in God’s eyes\. Maybe we need to surrender our flesh and get right with God so we can develop desires that are pure and godly\. As we look at the heart’s desires, we see they have a major impact on who we are and who we will become\. When our heart desires something, we pursue it with a deep longing\. In fact, there are examples in the Bible where God gave people desires to serve Him\. *And I arose in the night, I and some few men with me; neither told I any man what my God had put in my heart to do at Jerusalem: neither was there any beast with me, save the beast that I rode upon –Nehemiah 2:12\.* Reading further… *And Moses called Bezaleel and Aholiab, and every wise hearted man, in whose heart the LORD had put wisdom, even every one whose heart stirred him up to come unto the work to do it –Exodus 36:2\.* Remember, the word *desire* is a deep longing, craving, or wish\. If we are wanting a walk with God that is flourishing, then we must have the desires that God has, since His desires will change our life\. *So they did eat, and were well filled: for he gave them their own desire; They were not estranged from their lust\. But while their meat was yet in their mouths, The wrath of God came upon them, and slew the fattest of them, and smote down the chosen men of Israel –Psalm 78:29\-31\.* Even though God led the Israelites into the wilderness, gave them water and manna, and even a place to worship Him, they were still not satisfied and desired other things\. The children of Israel were granted their desires, but they ended up needing to pay with their own lives\. Another good example of God giving people their own desires is found in 1 Samuel 8 when the children of Israel wanted a king over them just like all the other nations\. *And \[they\] said unto him, Behold, thou art old, and thy sons walk not in thy ways: now make us a king to judge us like all the nations\. But the thing displeased Samuel, when they said, Give us a king to judge us\. And Samuel prayed unto the LORD\. And the LORD said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them –1 Samuel 8:5\-7\.* Oh Israel, *…for he \(God\) gave them their own desire –Psalm 78:29\.* It sounds like the Lord is saying, “Let’s let them have their own way and give them a king\.” However, later in the chapter He lists all the bad things that will come with having a king\. The Lord also tells Samuel who will rule over the children of Israel\. After their king was anointed, they needed to serve him and could no longer serve God only\. Consider why God brought them out of Egypt in the first place\. Wasn’t it so they could serve the only true God? Just like the children of Israel, we have seen God’s wonderous works\. If we have been born of God’s Spirit, He led us out of our “Egypt”; He showed us the path of life; He brought us out of the miry clay; He set our feet on a solid rock\. Still, we as humans tend to covet and long for something that we think is better\. We ask God to give us wisdom and that He would provide for our needs, yet down deep inside we beg for God to give us our selfish desires\. We need to surrender every area of our life to God’s control\. God knows what is best for us, however, if we insist, He will give us according to our selfish desires\. Remember, this earth is not our home\. The end is coming, which is what God has in mind\. We don’t know what is best for us, but God does\. Let’s have faith and change our desires for that which God wants us to fulfill in this life\. *Delight thyself also in the LORD; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart –Psalms 37:4\.* And, *Then shalt thou delight thyself in the LORD; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it–Isaiah 58:14* ## Magazine citation - [An engraving of Achan taking spoils during a battle](): S\.M\. Davis photo collection