Hope through Meeting with God - 20 February 2007

Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. Psalm 37:4.
One of the main ways that we can be encouraged is by meeting with God in private and public devotion: through reading his word, sung or spoken praise and worship or prayer. It is sad that we so often think of these things as something we ought to do, rather than an amazing opportunity to meet with the living God.
I sometimes find it hard to sing some worship songs, especially ones with “I love you” in them. I want to be singing “I don’t love you enough”. The starting point of worship for me is being reminded that God loves me, and loves me so much he was prepared to send his son to die on the cross. I think it’s only when I’ve taken that on board I can start singing “I love you Lord”. You would have thought after being a Christian for nearly twenty years I might now know that, but it seems to be something I have to be reminded of regularly.
It may seem strange that reaching this point of “delighting ourselves in the Lord” is linked with him giving us the desires of our hearts, ie him fulfilling our hopes. I don’t think it is about him granting our desires whatever they are, but about our hearts being changed as we draw near to God, so that our hopes become aligned with his.
May God bless you afresh in your encountering him.