Why Do I Always Fall For The World’s Lies?

Psalm 37:4

“Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.”

Let me explain what I used to think this verse meant.

If I just read my Bible, pray, go to church, obey God, and love and serve Him, then He’ll give me what I want.

 

I don’t know if I fully understood that knowing God and loving Him was SERIOUSLY satisfying.

We’re all living in the world. (If you’re living in space right now, then hello! And yes, I’m talking to you too.) Every day, we hear messages from the world coming at us about what we “need”. “You need more money. You need more clothes. You need more stuff. You need to be dating. You need to be more beautiful/handsome. You need to be a perfect student. You need _____.” I think we all can fall for these things.

I mean, come on! Why else would we fall for the TV commercials that “promise” to do something for us?

One commercial that really bugs me is the mascara commercial that shows the woman with creepily long eyelashes and promises to give you longer and thicker eyelashes if you use their mascara. However, in the disclaimer, it says, “false eyelashes used in demonstration.” No joke.

This company has an interesting  (if not deceptive) technique.

1. They obviously want people to buy their product, so they make it seem like all women need long and thick eyelashes, or they won’t be beautiful or happy.
2. They use this “fact” to their advantage by offering a product that supposedly can fix this problem.
3. They make it seem like the people that use their product are very beautiful and therefore happy.
4. The product sells because the majority of the women that see the commercial think that by using this mascara, they will be beautiful. And if you’re beautiful, that must mean that you’re happy, right?

Well, NO. The only satisfaction that you and I will ever get is the perfect satisfaction that comes from a relationship with God.

So why do I always fall for the world’s lies?

Why do I always think that God will give me “what I want” by my forcible compliance?

I’ve figured something out.

Delighting myself in the Lord comes before knowing what the desires of my heart truly are. I can’t just say, “God, I want ______. So from now until 9:30 P.M. on Friday night, I will delight in you, and after that, I know you’ll be faithful to gimme the [pointless and little] thing I want.”

No way.

It must go the other way around.

By delighting ourselves in the Lord, we find out what the desires of our hearts really are. For example, a desire of my heart is to get to know God better – but this is only because I have found my true satisfaction (by delighting) in Him. And guess what? I get to know Him more and more every day. And this makes me insanely joyful.

(I also talk about happiness vs. joy in my fist post, here.)

The desires of my heart have changed because I have found that He is truly what I need (and what I really want!).

Is that crazy? Well, maybe it sounds that way.

Perhaps the question we should be asking is, “Which do we want? Temporary earthly things that won’t satisfy for long? Or things – like

a thriving and growing relationship with the Author of your soul – that will satisfy forever?

I know what the desires of my heart are because I know the One who rescued my soul.

I know where True Love comes from.

I know who I really am.

Do you know?