Scripture: "Delight thyself in the Lord; and He shall give thee tke desires of thine heart."—PSALMS xxxvii. 4.
God is love, an ever-flowing fountain, out of which streams the unceasing desire to make His creatures the partakers of all the holiness and the blessedness there is in Himself. This desire for the salvation of souls is in very deed God's perfect will, His highest glory.
This loving desire of God, to get His place in the heart of men, He imparts to all His children who are willing to yield themselves wholly to Him. It is in this that the likeness and image of God consist—to have a heart in which His love takes complete possession, and leads us to find spontaneously our highest joy in loving as He does.
It is thus that our text finds its fulfilment: "Delight thyself in the Lord," and in His life of love, "and He will give thee the desires of thine heart." Count upon it that the intercession of love, rising up to heaven, will be met with the fulfilment of the desire of our heart. We may be sure that, as we delight in what God delights in, such prayer is inspired by God, and will have its answer. And our prayer becomes unceasingly, "Thy desires, O my Father, are mine. Thy holy will of love is my will too."
In fellowship with Him we get the courage, with our whole will and strength, to bring the persons or the circles in which we are interested, in an ever-growing confidence, that our prayer will be heard. As we reach out in yearning love, we shall get the power to take hold of the will of God to bless, and to believe that God will work out His own blessed will in giving us the desire of our hearts, because the fulfilment of His desire has been the delight of our souls.
We then become, in the highest sense of the word, God's fellow-labourers. Our prayer becomes part of God's Divine work of reaching and saving the lost. And we learn to find our happiness in losing ourselves in the salvation of those around us.
Our Father, teach us that nothing less than delighting ourselves in Thee, and in Thy desires toward men, can inspire us to pray aright, and give us the assurance of an answer. AMEN.
