Feeding On His Faithfulness
3 “Trust in the Lord, and do good; Dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness. 4 Delight yourself also in the Lord, And He shall give you the desires of your heart.” Psalm 37:3-4 NKJV
I think one of the most popular verses in Psalms is Psalm 37: 4. And why not? We all love to think about having the desires of our heart fulfilled. It is pleasant to think about the Lord who is all-powerful giving us all the desires of our heart. There are many layers of truth to be learned from this verse and certainly more than can be addressed in short devotional such as this. However, I want us to realize one element of the truth and promise provided in this verse.
What precedes the Lord giving me the desires of my heart? The first thing we see is that we are to trust in the Lord. Well right here most of us have already wandered off course and found frustration instead of fulfillment. Are you truly trusting in the Lord? Well, ask yourself this; have you even given Him a thought today in the midst of whatever you may be dealing with? Too often the answer is no, and if I am not even thinking of Him as I face the questions of life each day, then I can be certain I am not trusting Him. First, learn to trust Jesus daily with all areas of your life.
Then we are told to do good. If my heart is in Jesus and I am putting my trust in Him, then His heart and mind become my heart and thoughts. I think like Him because He is within me and the result is not simply a choice to do good, doing good is a result of my yielding to Him.
So, if I trust Him I will become more like Him and the by-product of this will be His good works through me. It is when I have come to this point in my walk with Jesus that my delight is not in the things that I selfishly desire and strive for in this life. Instead, my joy and my delight come from being with Jesus and with Jesus being in me. In the same way that my trusting in Him produces good works through me, my trust and further delight in Him will result in His desires becoming my desires. My heart is then to do the will of God and accomplish His glorious plans for me and through me.
Trust in the Lord leads to doing good in Him. And this leads to a yielding to Him which results in a pure delight in Him always. The by-product of this delight is His desires become my desires and I receive those desires of my heart in this life. As we grow to be in this position with Him in this life, we find that we are dwelling in the good land He prepared for us. We are dwelling in His best for us in this life. It is then that we find we are enjoying more than we had even imagined when we sought after selfish gains in life. Decide on this path and you are dwelling in His best land for you and there, you will feed every day on His faithfulness. You will not be hungry for anything in this life because you are feeding each day on the abundance of His faithfulness.
If this is the land you wish to dwell in (and it is the land He has prepared for you and desires for you), realize it all begins with trusting in Him. Train yourself daily to look to Him with trust.
J Todd Hostetler