Does God Give Us the Desires of Our Heart? A Fresh Look

With a Subtitle: How the Father places His desires in us—and the greater works that follow.

A brief Excerpt: Psalm 37:4 says God gives us the desires of our heart. But what if it means He places His desires in us? A fresh look at hard sayings, the works of Jesus, and how we might do greater works today.

The Author is: Klaus Meyer

Does God Give Us Whatever We Want?

How should we interpret the statement from Psalms 37:4 that God gives us the desires of our heart? Does this verse mean that God will do whatever we want? This interpretation cannot possibly be true.

There are other instances where we wrestle with the intent.

Greater Works Than These?

Jesus said that we would do the same works as He did and greater works than these (John 14:12). Greater works than raising the dead, stilling the storm, or feeding 5000 men plus women and children with just a couple fish and a little bread?

Born Without Sin

Jesus was born without sin; He did not inherit man’s sinful nature because He was conceived by the Holy Spirit.

These Things Were Written for Our Instruction

All these statements have caused many disagreements, and one can find most level-headed believers would rather avoid addressing these issues. But these verses were written for our instruction (Romans 15:4, 2 Timothy 3:16). Uneducated fishermen, through the direct teachings of Christ, were expected to understand these things, and therefore, we must be able to understand them as well, regardless of our level of education. Actually, it seems that highly educated people often have more trouble believing God has our best interests at heart than those who have very little formal education.

The Answer in the Life and Words of Jesus

Jesus’ life, His own statements, and the insights from men of God should give us the answer we seek:

Christ Jesus emptied Himself and became a man. Philippians 2:6-8 says He was born as a man, He grew up as a man, He was tempted as a man, He performed miracles as a man, and He died as a man. He even confessed that He did not know certain things and that only the Father knew them (Mark 13:32). And yet, He performed miracles no man did before Him nor after Him. He never sinned (Hebrews 4:15) because He was born sinless, and for that reason, He was able to resist the devil, which sinful man could never do (Luke 4:2).

He Did Only What He Saw the Father Doing

Jesus said that of Himself He could do nothing, that He only did what He saw His Father doing (John 5:19).

This statement may be the key to properly understanding the issue raised above: According to Jesus, He was only executing the tasks His Father gave Him to do. Let’s look at the verse in Psalms 37 again: the prosperity preachers use this passage often, claiming that God is fulfilling our desires, and they confirm this with verses like “Ask and ye shall receive.” Mainline churches, on the other hand, hardly use the verse in Psalms 37 because of the obvious disconnect that God does not do what we think we should desire. What if our interpretation of this verse is incorrect? We seem to interpret it as saying that God will fulfill the desires of our heart. Perhaps consider instead the meaning of “God gives us the desires of our heart” as more clearly understood that He puts His desires into our hearts.

What If God Puts His Desires Into Our Hearts?

Didn’t Jesus basically say the same thing by telling us that He could do only those things that He saw the Father doing? Could it be that the Father showed Him in His nightly prayers what He wanted Him to do the next day and put His (the Father’s) desires into His (Jesus’) heart. Using the nightly prayer sessions as an example, God could obviously use any other occasion. But the nightly sessions would help us understand better how the Holy Spirit works in us. For example, God may have shown Jesus beforehand that there would be a widow’s only son carried to the grave (Luke 7:11-15) when He entered the city of Nain. When Jesus entered the city of Nain and saw the dead man being carried out, He realized that God had spoken to Him about resurrecting the widow’s son, despite having no prior knowledge of the situation.

Performing the Greater Works Today

This example shows us how we could perform the “greater works” Jesus calls us to by listening to the Holy Spirit and obeying. Just like Moses, but more intimately, Jesus was in such close contact with God that He probably did not need confirmation. But for us, it is important to make sure that our desires are really directed by God and not by our imagination or sin nature. And, if it really is God instructing us, giving us the thought in our heart to take action, and we are obedient, then we can be sure that the result will be the miracle God intended.