Day to Day

When I was in Kentucky, Tiffany gave me this letter that she had written. I thought it was a wonderful study and I wanted to share it.

Growing up, I had always believed his verse to mean something like: Honor and love the Lord above everything else, find pleasure in loving Him and be full of His presence, and He will grant you your heart's desires. In essence, " Love the Lord with all your heart and He will make your dreams come true."
But recently, the Lord has led me to study this verse again, to go back and look up the original Hebrew words used. Doing so has completely transformed the way that I look at this verse. Let me share:
First of all, the Hebrew word for "delight" is anag (pronounced aw-nag) which means "to be soft or pliable." It's also translated "delicate." At first, I thought maybe I had looked the word up wrong, because it wasn't what I was expecting at all! I was expecting the word "delight" to mean "find pleasure in, love, honor" or something like that. Most of the other words that are translated "delight" in the Old Testament are from Hebrew words that mean that very thing: "be pleased with, take pleasure in, have delight in," etc. But in this particular instance, "delight" means "to be soft or pliable." (I learned a valuable lesson during this study. Far too often when I read Scripture, I say, "Oh, I know what this means" when I really need to be crying out, "Lord, please help me to understand what You mean in this.")
I had originally started looking at Psalm 37:4 in-depth when I was studying another passage about delighting in God: Isaiah 58. Essentially what is happening in this chapter is that the Lord is showing the children of Israel the differences between their idea of a fast and His idea of a fast, between their plans for the Sabbath and His plans for the Sabbath. He is showing them that they are just checking spiritual boxes, but the attitude of their hearts is not pleasing to Him.
Isaiah 58: 13&14 reads:
"If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath,
[literally, turn away thy foot from trampling the Sabbath]
from doing thy pleasure on My Holy day; and shalt honour Him,
not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure,
nor speaking thine own words:
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."

The word "delight" is found two times in this passage. First, we are exhorted to call the Sabbath "a delight." This word - oneg - literally means "a luxury." I love that. Ever since I discovered this, I have been saying on Sunday, "Ah, a delight! a luxury!"
The word for "delight" in verse 14, is the same word used in Psalm 37:4, anag. The Lord is saying in this passage that if we will do all of these things (through of course the power of the Holy Spirit working in us), then we will delight ourselves in the Lord - or literally "be soft and pliable" in His hands.
Understanding the real meaning of the word for "delight" in these two passages completely changes the picture I once had in min when I read, "Delight thyself in the Lord." Before, I had pictured myself with an upturned face, glorying in the Lord. But now when I read this verse, I picture myself bowed low in brokenness, being soft and pliable in the hands of the Lord. It makes me think clay and the verses in Jeremiah 18 when the Lord sent the prophet to the potter's house:

"Then I went down to the potter's house, and, behold, he wrought a work on the
wheels. And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter:
so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.
Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying,
O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the Lord.
Behold, as the clay is in the potter's hand, so are ye in Mine hand, O house of
Israel."

My favorite part of this passage is the part that reads, "as seemed good to the potter to make it." We are His and if we delight in Him - or become soft and pliable in his hands - then He will mold us and make us into what best pleases Him.
The rest of Psalm 37:4 reads, "and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart." The Hebrew word for desires" is mishalah (pronounced mish-aw-law) which means "a request or petition." So often I find myself thinking, "The Lord will give this to me if it's His will to do so." But I forget that His will might be for me to first ask. This word, Mishalah, suggests more than just an unspoken desire. This word suggests ac action - that of asking. This makes me think of the verses in James 4 - "... ye have not, because ye ask not. Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss...."
So what should we be asking for? What should be the "desires of our heart" if we are "soft and pliable in the hands of the Lord?
When I think of the desires of my heart, the first thing that comes to mind is the calling God has placed on my life to one day be a wife and mother. My prayers for that have changed over the last few months as the Lord has been teaching me about presumptuous sins and how so often my prayers presume that certain things will absolutely and unquestionably happen, it's just a matter of God's timing. But none of us are promised tomorrow, nor promised a husband and children. Now instead of just praying for my future husband as if it's a guarantee that I will one day be married I've started praying, "Lord if it is your will for me to get married one day, I pray that your will bless my future husband."
When it comes to praying for children, I always think of Hannah's prayer in 1 Samuel. How often have I cried out to the Lord with such passion, pouring out my heart before the Lord as Hannah did? Not often enough.
This brings to mind Romans 8:25-27 which reads:
"But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it
Likewise the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot
be uttered.
And He that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because
He maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God. "

If we delight in the Lord, if we are soft and pliable in His hands, then our desires - our prayers and petitions- will be directed by the Holy Spirit. For as this verse says, 'we know not what we should pray for.' And how does the Holy Spirit direct us? Through God's word. This is one thing that the Lord has really been impressing on my heart lately: Pray the Word, pray the Word, pray the Word! The book of Psalms, for example, has hundreds of beautiful prayers to pray.
What a comfort it is to know that when we are soft and pliable in His hands, He works in our hearts so that what we desire becomes what He desires for us. Then the prayers that we pray will be prayers united with His will, because the Holy Spirit is all the while teaching us how to pray and what to pray for, through His Word.
"Delight thyself also in the Lord [be soft and pliable in His hand],
and He will give thee the desires [requests and petitions] of thine heart."