Giving God the Desires of Your Heart

Many of us have desires that we do not talk or pray about. We have not dared to nurture them enough for them to gain the substance required to become dreams. We may fear that by acknowledging their existence and opening up about them to God we are setting ourselves up for the heartbreak of disappointment.

Our desires can manifest as what motivates or inspires us, or as what frustrates, saddens or angers us. They can range from personal aspirations for things like business, family, wealth or education, to wanting change to inefficiencies, injustices or inequalities in our local or global communities.

The Psalmist instructs us:

Delight yourself in the LORD, and He will give you the desires of your heart. Psalm 37:4 ESV

The latter part of the verse is often interpreted as God will give us what we want, but one day the Holy Spirit showed me that it also means God will place desires within our hearts - He will give us things to desire. As a result, our desires and God's will match up and serve to lead us on His path for our lives. As we delight ourselves in the Lord our desires begin to reflect His desires.

The Holy Spirit wants us to trust Him with our desires. He lovingly explains that He is waiting for you and me to open up and trust Him with our desires. The desires He has put in us are a form of communication from Him to us. They are placed within us to be communicated back to Him.

Holy Spirit says: Open up and share your desires with Me and I will pour My love on them. They will be a conduit of my love, not only in the fulfilment of your desires as I cause them to come to pass because I love you, but the very sharing and communicating of these desires with Me will change everything for you and will change you.

As we share our desires with God we will see who God has created us to be. As we communicate with God about our desires we will discover more about them and begin to accept them instead of doubting whether anything could come of them. They will also be purified from any contamination from our own or the world's views and any impact of hurts and trauma we may have experienced.

A Divine Invitation

A range of words throughout the Bible can be translated as 'desire'. In Psalm 37:4 'desires' is the Hebrew word mishalah which means request, desire, petition, and comes from a root word meaning to ask or inquire. Our desires are actually a divine invitation to ask the Holy Spirit questions. Questions like:

• Why do I desire this?

• What inspires or deeply bothers me?

• What do You want me to do with the desires You have given me? How do my desires, personality, gifts, and life story uniquely work together to equip me for Your plan for my life?

• What need are my desires supposed to meet?

• How do my desires reveal God's plan and purpose for my life?

• How can the fulfilment of my desires bring God's purpose and will from heaven to earth?

• In what ways do I need to develop in order to prepare for what my desires reveal?

God has given us the very desires of our hearts for a purpose. God knows where the questions we ask Him will take not only us but also those He has created us to influence. Our God-given desires are the beginning of something bigger than us. They are clues to our heavenly purpose on earth, so asking God questions helps us uncover what the clues point to. If we hide our desires from God we risk going through life missing vital clues to our purpose.

I also believe that we are accountable for what we do with everything God gives us, including our desires. If we try to hide these from ourselves and God we are like the servant who buried the talents in the Parable of the Sower in Matthew 25:14-30 and Luke 19:12-27. So instead, let us trust God with our desires and accept His divine invitation.

Blessing in Action: Giving God the Desires of Your Heart

Delight yourself in the LORD, and He will give you the desires of your heart. Psalm 37:4 ESV

Quietly dig deep into the recesses of your heart with the light of the Holy Spirit and ask Him to unearth your buried and neglected desires.

Consider any areas you do not pray about even though they are important to you. Talk to the Holy Spirit about the reasons for this if you know, or ask Him to reveal to you the reasons why if you do not. Repent of hiding these desires from Him and commit to trusting God again in each area that comes to mind.

Ask the Holy Spirit the questions about each desire using the list of questions above as a starting point if necessary.

Expect answers from God both during this quiet moment and in the days and weeks to come.