The Desires of My Heart

When I was a little girl, I wanted the "Happily Ever After" from the fairy tales my mother read to me. As a teenager, I wanted to write for the New York Times and marry Kirk Cameron. When James threw a baseball to me for the first time when he was 2 years old and just about broke my hand, I wanted to be the mother of a Texas Rangers major league pitcher.

If we're all honest with ourselves, Martin Luther King Jr. was not the only one with a dream. We all have them even if we don't voice them aloud. And it's obvious that so many of us want other people's dreams to come true. Don't believe it? Look at the popularity of television shows such as Extreme Makeover Home Edition and American Idol. I was heartbroken when Susan Boyle didn't win Britain's Got Talent! And I was thrilled right along with her when she got to meet Donny Osmond!

One of my favorite television shows is Undercover Boss. For those who haven't seen it, the CEOs of various companies go out and perform the day to day to tasks of their organizations. They are in disguise and most of the employees have no idea that the uniformed new employee is actually the head of the organization. The results are often quite comical, because in most cases the boss fails miserably!

While the undercover operation is entertaining, the part I love best is the reveal portion of the program. While out in the workforce, each of the Presidents always finds the people who make his company great. Those who go above and beyond are noticed. Whether it's simply by their work ethic, or the way they connect with the customers or what they do outside of the work place, each of them leave an impression. They then bring those employees to company headquarters and let them know that plain old Tom who was doing an entry level job is actually; as one gentleman put it; "my boss's boss"!

And they proceed to make their hopes and dreams and come true. Single mothers are given free childcare so they can go to school, Employees from a theme park agree to spend the day rebuilding a coworker's house that flooded displacing him and his five foster children, and a dad with a terminally ill child is given time off with pay and a family vacation at the company's expense. All the while, I sit on my couch, tears pouring down my face, knowing that their lives from that moment on are changed.

Psalm 37:4 says bring

Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart.

Many will read and that and say "Hey! God will give me anything I want!" NO! Where people (And when I say people I mean me) often go wrong in this verse is thinking that somehow they deserve to get everything and anything they want just because they ask God for it. What I neglected to do was to read verses 5 and 6: Commit your way to the Lord, Trust also in Him, and He shall it to pass. He shall bring forth your righteousness as the light, And your justice as the noonday.

Commit? Trust? Justice? What? I have to do something? As I often do when I'm studying, I search the scripture in different translations. And as it often does, the verses suddenly became clear.

See, just as the employees were working with an attitude of doing their job to the best of their ability, and having fun while they were doing it, so must I have this same attitude when I serve God! (New Century Version)

⁴ Enjoy serving the Lord,
and he will give you what you want.
⁵ Depend on the Lord;
trust him, and he will take care of you.
⁶ Then your goodness will shine like the sun,
and your fairness like the noonday sun.