A Devotion from Stephen Charnock

Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart. 
-Psalm 37:4

The highest step of delight is a silencing of desire and the banquet of the soul on its desired object.

But there is a [less lofty] delight.

Delight in desires. There is a cheerfulness in labor as well as in attainment. The desire of Canaan made the good Israelites cheerful in the wilderness. There is a beginning delight in motion but a consummate delight in rest and fulfillment.

Delight in hopes. Desired happiness affects the soul—much more, expected happiness. “We rejoice in the hope of the glory of God” (Rom. 5:2). Joy is the natural consequence of a well-grounded hope. There may be joy in title as well as in possession.

Delight in contemplation. The consideration and serious thoughts of heaven affect a gracious heart and fill it with pleasure, though that heart is in a wilderness. The near approach to a desired good much affects the heart. Moses was surely more pleased with the sight of Canaan from Pisgah than with the hopes of it in the desert. A traveler’s delight is more raised when nearest the journey’s end, and a hungry stomach has a greater joy when it sees the food approaching that must satisfy the appetite. As the union with the object is nearer, so the delight is stronger. Now the delight the soul has in duty is not a delight of fulfillment but of desire, hope, or contemplation—a delight of the journey, not of the home.

Now this delight in prayer is an inward and hearty delight, seated in the heart. As God is hearty in offering mercy, so is the soul in petitioning for it. There is a harmony between God and the heart. Those purposes that God has in giving are a Christian’s purpose in asking. The more our hearts are in the requests, the more God’s heart is in the grants. The emphasis of mercy is God’s whole heart and whole soul in it (Jer. 32:41). So the emphasis of duty is the Christian’s whole heart and whole soul. As without God’s cheerful answering, a gracious soul would not relish a mercy, so without our hearty asking God does not relish our prayers.