Psalm 37: Delight

We’ve all heard Psalm 37:4, “Delight yourself in the LORD, and He will give you the desires of Your heart.” Most of us have heard someone try to explain the verse, usually teaching that the verse is not telling us how to get what we want from God but rather, that when we truly delight in God our hearts and our desires begin to change. There is probably some truth to that. The Scriptures are filled with examples of people whose experience with Jesus changed not just their lives but their character, people who didn’t just stop their sinful behavior but chased after righteousness, people who traded their former desires for a new desire found only in Jesus Himself. My question today is one I’ve wrestled with for a long time. I’m not sure I’m convinced of the answer, but I believe I’m closer to understanding than I’ve been before, what does it mean to delight?

We define the word delight as great pleasure or to please someone greatly, and so we try to obey Psalm 37:4 by finding our happiness and pleasure in God. I don’t think that’s a negative thing, but I’m not sure that’s what the Scripture is trying to teach us. The verb in this verse comes from the Hebrew root ‘anag. Its literal definition may be a bit surprising, it means to be soft, to be delicate. It’s about how we present ourselves, not how we perceive someone else. It’s not about God making us happy, it’s about us presenting ourselves delicate, fragile and vulnerable to God.

Part of the reason that we’ve struggled to interpret verse 4 is that we have rarely read it in conjunction with verse 1. David began the psalm with the command “Do not fret over doers of evil; do not envy those who do wrong.” We have a tendency to use the word fret as a bit of a scaled down version of worry or anxiety, for us fret almost has a connotation of whimsy, we tend to use it to describe insignificant worries or anxieties that we consider silly. The problem is, that is not at all how the original language uses the word. The word David used to begin this psalm always carries with it the connotation of anger. Strong’s Concordance uses this definition, “to be hot, furious, burn, become angry, kindled; be incensed; heat oneself into vexation.” David was describing worry that creates fear and leads us to take up our own cause; anxiety that convinces us to protect, defend, fight and provide for ourselves.

What’s important to see is that the second command tells us how to obey the first. We begin to “fret not” when we learn to “delight in”. We overcome anxiety when we submit ourselves to God’s care. We defeat our anger when we surrender to God’s justice. We overcome our fear when we trust God’s character. This is not about putting things in God’s hands, the way we have often been told to “leave it at the altar” or “let go and let God”. This is a call to put ourselves in God’s hands, to believe not just in His ability, but in His willingness, to trust His heart for us and to be confident not that His will is better, but that His heart is good.

Jesus displayed this perfectly. If anyone ever had reason to fret over evil doers, it was Jesus. He could have easily become furious or burned with anger, He could have railed about how unfair His situation was or how unjust He was being treated, but Jesus delighted Himself in the LORD. He trusted the Father, He stayed silent before His accusers, He put His life in God’s hands, and He found His joy in believing He was loved. Jesus was Almighty God, the Creator of all things, the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords and yet He chose to be vulnerable, to be fragile, to even be what many might call soft by putting Himself in the Father’s hands, for the Father’s glory, always believing in the Father’s goodness.

Now what about those desires that David promises will be fulfilled? The problem that many of us have is that it’s the desires that keep us from delighting ourselves in God. It’s the things that we believe we must have that keep us from trusting that God will provide all the things we need. A few years ago, I either heard or read (I can’t recall) a prayer that thanked God for providing all that we need and then said, “if You have not provided it is because it was not needed”. Why is it that we will often believe our hearts when they tell us what we need, deserve or should have and question God’s goodness when He has never dealt with us selfishly? He demonstrated His love by sending Jesus to die for sinners. He chooses to be patient with us willing that none would perish. He has given His mercy precedent over His judgment and yet, we regularly pull back from His hands when it seems that our hearts are not getting what they believe they require.

We’ve already discussed a bit of language in this post, but we must talk briefly about one more word. The Hebrew word that we translate as “desires” in verse 4 is only found in two places in the Old Testament. It doesn’t simply describe our wants or wishes. It comes from a root verb that means “to ask, inquire, borrow, beg”. The Theological Workbook of the Old Testament says that this word was used “to ask God for guidance, i.e., enquiring of the LORD.” This word is not about getting what we want, it’s about the things that only God can provide. Think of Joshua asking for the sun to stand still, Hannah asking for a child or Solomon asking for wisdom, things that were needed, that were wanted, but that were completely up to God and God alone.

So, here’s what David is saying in Psalm 37:4, “Put yourself in God’s hands and He will do what only He can do.” The call is to stop fretting and start trusting, to stop worrying and start surrendering, to stop believing that we know what we need and start trusting that God will withhold no good thing from those who walk uprightly. It’s a call to choose weakness so that Christ’s strength can be perfected in us; a call to a fasted lifestyle so that we can learn what it’s like to live on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God; a call to believe that Jesus’ grace is sufficient for all of our needs because Jesus Himself is enough. He doesn’t simply provide for our needs, He has become the provision that fulfills all of our desires.