Parents know full well that wise parenting means giving children always what they need and not necessarily what they want. For, to give a child what he wants could harm him and, in some instances, prove fatal for him. God, our heavenly Father, always gives us what we need for life and godliness (2 Peter 1:3).

What are we to make of Psalm 37:4? I would argue that this wonderful piece of Hebrew poetry is not so much a condition as it is a statement of fact. While there is certainly a cause-and-effect relationship between "delighting in the Lord" and receiving the desire of our hearts, this verse states what is true of all believers who revel (delight) in their relationship with the Lord-their needs become their desires. That is to say, what they desire for themselves becomes that which God's desires for them to have. Their desires line up with God's desires, so that what they ask for is what God is already pleased to grant them.

How does this happen? In the context of the Psalm, the word "delight" is further explained in the next verse (v. 5): "Commit your way to the Lord, trust also in Him, and He will do it." When a believer is committed to obeying the Lord, trusting Him at every turn, considering Him in all his ways (Proverbs 3:5-6), so that his passion is his relationship with the Lord, then it may truly be said of him that he delights in God. Such a person, who is steeped in God's will all the time, constantly thirsting to know more of it to apply it to his own situations in life, experiences something wonderful: God's thoughts become his thoughts; God's ways become his ways; God's will becomes his will; and what God desires for him is what he desires for himself-to live like Jesus, proclaim the word to the ends of the earth, love enemies, help the orphan and widow, etc.

Psalm 37:4 is not promising you anything you want on the condition that you simply obey the Lord, far from it. It is guaranteeing you that if you commit your ways to the Lord in obedient faith, the Lord will give you the very desires that you should have and then He will fulfill them for you. This comforting and exciting truth is what needed to be taught to those who might be tempted to envy unbelievers who have acquired their success in life illegitimately (the context of the Psalm). And we need to hear it today. It is confirmed by the Lord Himself (John 14:13) and is the confidence of which John speaks in his first epistle (1 John 5:14). What a great God we have.