Skipping like a calf loosed from its stall...

"Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart." - Psalm 37:4

Great verse. I've quoted it many times to people and myself, its even in my signature for one of my email accounts! Its one of those great one liners thats always encouraging. But what does it really mean? How do you just delight yourself in the Lord? I realized that this verse is not as stand alone as I thought...

 "Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday." - Psalm 37:3-6

Trust, Delight, Commit. Delighting in the Lord is just part of a greater process!

 Trust. First before you can delight in the Lord you must trust him. And as you trust him, you can dwell in peace and befriend faithfulness (also translated "find safe pasture"). It is this first step that begins the rest of the process, the mental action to trust God with whatever is in your life will allow you give it away and take away the burden so that you may live in peace and "graze" on faithfulness. Only then are you ready to delight in the Lord.

 Delight. Once you have trusted him and find his peace, then you are free of the burdens of the world and are able to delight in the Lord. And as you are empty, he will fill you with his desires and then fulfill them which will cause you delight in him more and more! As you find your delight in him it will lead you to greater intimacy and commitment to him.

 Commit. Again, the psalmist reminds us to trust in the Lord as we commit to him, but this true commitment is only found after we have delighted in the Lord. Anyone who commits to something out of obligation is never very committed but those who commit out of a place of desires and delight will always be committed followers. The more and more we trust God, the more and more we will commit our way to him and in that he promises that he will act. We commit to him and he will deliver. What will he deliver? Righteousness and justice. What about blessings God? What about a bonus, a new car? a better place...maybe a vacation? If I commit to you will you act on those?? God tells us what he acts on. And only after we go through the process of trusting, delighting, and committing will we discover that His righteousness and justice are exactly what we desire.

 I realize that to delight myself in the Lord is not just something I can pursue on its own but I must pursue God with all my trust and give him everything and in the process I will discover all the yearnings of my heart satisfied.