Take Delight in the Lord

Today's Psalm 37:4 says: "Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart."

Don't we normally think that we get our desires only by keeping our nose to the grindstone? Getting the desires of our heart comes after hard work, not before. To take delight in the Lord in order to get our desires seems to be eating desert before the main course.

Carroll Stuhmueller's comments elaborate the meaning of the psalm: "The lines of this psalm do not need explanation so much as our prolonged, contemplative reflection. We need to memorize a poem like this one (one of the reasons for the alphabetical style) and then to allow its words and sentences to seep into many segments of our thought and conversation.

"Fortunately this type of contemplation does not wisk us off to the clouds. Typical of the sapiential movement, the whole realm of reward and punishment remains within the parameters of life on earth. Even such lines as Take delight in the Lord . . . seeks a joy that is delicate and dignified yet always of this earth: i.e., Isa 55:2, 'Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Hearken to me . . . and delight in rich fares.'"

Taking delight in the Lord and realizing the desires of our hearts can be seen as two sides of the same coin, two moments of the same experience. The desire of our heart is to live in joy. To live in joy -- joy in this beautiful day, joy in the people we meet, joy in the various "goods" we experience -- is to let life be, to experience it as gratuitous, as gift. The joy we experience points to God, the giver, the source of all being. So, enjoy life, and take delight in the Lord!