What We Were Made For
‘Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart’ (Psalm 37:4). In a world obsessed with getting what we want fast, this verse can sound like a promise of instant fulfilment. But Jules Badger invites us to look deeper—beyond the desires we’re shaped to chase—and discover how God’s own unwavering desire for us transforms everything.
I’ve always felt drawn to the surface premise of this verse; who wouldn’t? At first glance it seems so straightforward. In return for giving God my undivided love and devotion, He gives me whatever I want. Sounds great! At first. But then it gets problematic. To begin with, can I actually give God my undivided love and devotion? I’m only human after all and prone to wandering and fickleness. And what does it mean to ‘delight yourself in the Lord’, really? How much delight qualifies us for the goodies? What about the ‘heart’s desire’ bit? Is there a criteria God refers to? And if we distil this all right down, surely such a cold, clinical exchange can’t possibly be what a so-called loving God intends? I thought God wanted a relationship with me, not just a transaction…
To add to the confusion, often this verse is packaged with a stern warning from preachers and teachers, almost as though God were trying to trick us with hidden fine print. There’s been this Santa Claus echo. Be good, and if you try hard enough to please God, He just might come through for you. Oh, but only if what you want aligns with His will. If it doesn’t, well, that’s on you. Try harder.
What if…
What if there’s more to the story? What if God is not some sort of score keeper, but instead a lover who pursues us, and whose desire is for us? Full stop. No matter what. Regardless of how good (or not) we might be. What if this verse is not a warning to us but a declaration of God’s divine love for us? What if, as the early Salvation Army’s great holiness teacher Commissioner Samuel Logan Brengle describes, ‘God woos us’?
What if this verse is not so much about us delighting in the Lord but the desire God has to know us—in all our raggamuffin glory. What if it’s about God’s great and unquenchable love for us leading us to a deeper experience of love?
What if instead of a cold quid-pro-quo exchange, we find a promise that points to God’s eternal faithfulness and brings comfort and hope amid the unfairness and injustice of life this side of heaven? Let’s take a closer look at where this single verse fits into the wider context of the psalm’s 40 verses.
A handbook for believers
Psalm 37 is a psalm of David. Verse 25 says, ‘Once I was young, and now I am old’. David is writing from experience and his journey from shepherd boy to King of Israel is one of seasons of both triumph and terror. David ran from King Saul for over a decade before taking up the throne. David also committed adultery and murder, penning from the heart Psalm 51—words of confession, repentance, forgiveness and healing. Despite all this—because of all this—David is described in Scripture as ‘a man after God’s own heart’.
In Psalm 37, we find a handbook for believers walking through real life, with all its injustice and pain.
Referred to as ‘a song of wisdom’, David writes to all those who are struggling with the unfairness of life. Those who have become stuck as they look around at those who have rejected God but do whatever they want and flourish and prosper while they remain faithful seemingly without benefit.
Into this place of disillusionment David writes:
‘Don’t follow after the wicked ones or be jealous of their wealth. Don’t think for a moment they’re better off than you. They and their short-lived success will soon shrivel up and quickly fade away like grass clippings in the hot sun. Fix your heart on the promises of God, and you will dwell in the land, feasting on His faithfulness. Find your delight and true pleasure in Yahweh, and he will give you what you desire most (Psalm 37:1–4, The Passion Translation).
David calls us to pause and consider our heart’s deepest desires. In his book Thirsting: Quenching the Soul’s Deepest Desire, New Zealand contemplative Strahan Coleman writes,
‘It’s been said that “desire is the straw that stirs the drink” of our lives. That at the very bottom of it all, at the very heart of the gospel, is the reorientation of our deepest yearnings, a resurrection of divine affection, an encounter with love. In this view the kingdom of heaven, at its core, isn’t ultimately about eternal security, ethics, moralism, or justice, but desire. Desire is the blood rushing through the veins of all Christian spirituality.’
What if the desires of our heart are not our desires alone, but the co-mingling of our deepest human longing with God’s unquenchable love for us?
Nothing this world offers can ever truly satisfy our deepest longings.
Which is not to say that there is nothing in this life to enjoy and love—there is—but even the very best and most beautiful cannot fulfil our soul’s deepest desire. Why? Because we were created first and foremost to know and find our being in God. Our very existence is defined by the question: will we return the love of the one who loves us completely?
‘Love is a tale of two longings,’ writes Coleman. ‘These two realities, love’s pursuit of us and our deep calling back, are the tension that lives beneath the cosmos, driving everything that exists. Our spiritual journey towards union with God erupts, grows and is defined by our awakening to this loving tension. It lies at the centre of our story, of God’s people, of you and me as individuals… The whole gospel is simply an invitation to respond “Yes” with all our being. We are, you are, being pursued. In movements and language unfamiliar to your life-worn senses, Divine Love wants you … This pursuit is so much more than an existential exchange, it’s a deep calling to deep longing for the mingling of your being with He who created you. It’s what you were made for.’
