Psalm 37:4
Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.
I remember hearing a pastor one time share this passage and tell a story about taking his son to a ball game. They were sitting in their seats and the son said, “I hope we can get a foul ball.” So the pastor told his son they should pray. So they prayed and sure enough they caught 2 foul balls during the game. What a wonderful story about God answering prayer. But even as the pastor shared his story, I couldn’t help but wonder. What about the batter? What about the player who hit the foul ball? Let’s just say they were a believer. Do you think they were in the dugout praying, “God please help me to hit two foul balls tonight to bless a kid in the stands?” If that batter is praying, they are praying to hit a home run and help their team win. Yet that player went to the plate and hit a foul ball. To them, it was a failure. But to the pastor and his son it was an answer to prayer.
We all go through moments in our lives where we are praying and asking God for something specific. Yet when it doesn’t happen, we feel like we’ve failed. Maybe our faith wasn’t strong enough. Maybe we didn’t believe or pray hard enough. We questioned ourselves and wonder, “Why didn’t God give me the desire of my heart?”
So I’ll share my own baseball story with you. I am North Texan so I love my Texas Rangers. They’ve broken my heart a few times and been really bad the rest, but I love baseball and my team. One thing I’ve always enjoyed about ballgames is the jumbotron. Seeing people dance, cheer, kiss, or whatever is always fun to watch. So I wanted to be on the jumbotron. When 40,000 plus people get to see you for 5 seconds it makes you feel like a mini celebrity. One day my mom came home and said we got tickets to a game from her work. I decided this would be the day I get on the jumbotron. I took my craziest hat with my Rangers gear and glove and prayed the whole way to the game, “God please help me get on the jumbotron.” We get there and we are in mid level seats, the spot where they always shoot the cameras for the jumbotron. 16 year old me believed that God had ordained this moment and prepared me for such a time as this. So I went nuts. I was jumping, I was shouting, I was doing every dance I could think of. A mother and her 6 year old son sat behind us and he and I started doing dances together. I even started the wave. I got an entire baseball stadium to do the wave. It was a magical. But when all was said and done and the final pitch had been thrown, I never made the jumbotron. I felt defeated. I was so prepared. I prayed and asked God for the desire of my heart. I was high-fiving and dancing and shouting all night long, but it never happened. I was so disappointed that I just wanted to go home and go to bed.
As we picked up our stuff to leave, the mother and son who sat behind us stopped me. The mom took my hand and thanked me with a tear in her eye. His dad was supposed to bring him to the game and didn’t. She said he was so upset until I showed up. Without even realizing, I was talking with her son through the whole game. We laughed and made jokes and enjoyed the game together. When that little boy hugged me and thanked me, I could’ve cared less about being on a jumbotron. The love and joy on that little boys face was worth it all. I learned that day what Psalm 37:4 truly means. When we take delight in what God wants, His desires become our desires. I didn’t care anymore about what I wanted, what mattered to me was what God had planned all along.
Matthew 6:33 tells us to “seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” None of us can know what the future will hold. We worry about what might happen and so our prayers almost always become self serving. “God, I want this for MY life.” “God, I want this to happen for ME.” But when we can learn to see the bigger picture, when we can put our focus on God and not just ourselves, we can find joy beyond measure by fulfilling God’s purpose and plan. Whether it’s hitting a foul ball or dancing in a giant blue and yellow hat, when we desire what God desires, we always win.
