Finding True Delight in the Lord
Elle Cardel
5 min read ⭑
Have you ever read Psalm 37:4, “Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart,” and wondered what a life of delight actually entails?
I remember the excitement that washed over me when I read this verse for the very first time. I was instantly convinced life was about to become so much sweeter due to my newfound belief that God wanted to bless me with “the desires of my heart” as long as I followed in the footsteps of Christ. This line of thought made it easy for me to question why there were people in the world who did not follow God.
I mean, if he gives us the things we want when we follow him, what do we have to lose? That’s what the verse means, right?
Wrong.
Kelly Sikkema; Unsplash
You see, at the time I first encountered this verse, I lacked the proper tools needed to read, study and apply Scripture in a way that edified me and yielded glory to our almighty, everlasting God. Because of this, my spiritually immature self entertained the surface-level and false belief that as long as I was on my best behavior and did good things, the Lord would reward me with the ever-changing things of the world my sinful flesh desired.
Sadly, a large portion of my childhood centered around this twisted ideology of who God was. If you have been there, done that, then you know it can only result in one thing: a very unhealthy, guilt-filled relationship with the Lord.
My false ideologies eventually morphed into a point reward system that determined how well-off my relationship with God was. In my eyes, as long as I was scoring well on the charts I had personally created, God’s delight in me was bursting at the seams. My successes were my way of leveling up and inching closer to receiving the things my flesh desired as a “good job” reward from my Father in heaven.
As you can imagine, when things were not going well, I was a terrified puddle of emotions. This self-focused system of winning God’s approval that I concocted for myself had me living in a constant state of both fear and pride. It felt good to level my way up in God’s eyes, but it was always so short-lived.
Any time I made a mistake — which, might I add, was often — I found myself bearing the unnecessary and incredibly heavy weight of believing God’s acceptance of me depended on what I could and could not do in my own strength. In high school, this belief centered on my grades. I was determined to graduate at the top of my class, and I refused to take anything less than college prep and honors courses. Add to the list marching band (yeah, I was a band geek), cross-country, National Honor Society and a job at Sonic, and I was at the top of my game. Except not really, because it was extremely difficult and exhausting to keep it all up. I was drowning in commitments and hours of homework every day.
Every day I was up at 5:45 for school. Three days a week, I had a three-hour break after school and before marching band practice to do my homework — that is, if I did not have cross-country practice or responsibilities with the National Honor Society. When my twelve-plus-hour day at school ended, I would get home after nine to eat dinner, finish the homework I’d been unable to get to and go to bed somewhere around 10:30 or 11:00. Two days a week, I rushed home from school to get dressed for my shift at Sonic, which ended at 7:00. Then I would come home, shower, eat dinner and do all my homework.
“The Lord longs to be the desire of our hearts . . . our true delight. He rejoices when we live in such a way that reflects the abounding truth that all we will ever need is found in him.”
With every mistake I made, whether it was a grade I disapproved of, not finishing all my homework the night beforehand and therefore having to rush to complete it during lunch the next day, missing an after-school club meeting or getting a poor time on one of my cross-country runs, I would find myself in the cycle of self-recrimination. It felt a lot like falling into a dark hole, helpless — and confident that God wanted nothing to do with the many ways I was falling short. It was a weight God never intended for me to bear, but I simply had no idea.
I was so young and struggling internally in so many ways.
Oh, how I wish I would have known this weight was not mine to bear.
Living like this distracted me from feasting on the freedom Christ’s sacrifice made way for me to enjoy. It kept me from my seat at the table. Instead of feeding my weary soul the nourishment it needed, I feasted on lies. Instead of walking in the truth that my Father’s approval of me was by grace alone, I chased after the ways I thought I could “balance the scales” and gain back his approval. Instead of trusting in God’s holy, infallible Word, I trusted my fallible self.
I look back now and can clearly see that I was running after the exact opposite of freedom. I was a lost and lonely prisoner, held captive by my own thoughts, running my way through a maze I did not belong in with no end in sight, hoping, like a hungry little mouse, I would turn the corner and find the cheese — the prize of God’s approval. And the only one pleased by my misguided and destructive theology was Satan.
In order to escape the maze once and for all, I needed the sight I did not have. Rather than viewing things through my own lens, I needed to put on the lens of Christ by reading and studying the Word correctly. I needed to pivot in such a way that demonstrated the truth that my trust and security were both faulty when placed anywhere outside of Scripture.
Instead of reading the Bible at surface level, it was time to plant myself in its pages and remain rooted in them with a genuine desire to understand what God desired to reveal to me. Rather than visiting God’s Word on occasion, it was time to make his Word my dwelling place.
Thanks be to God, by the power of his Holy Spirit, he lovingly and graciously guided me to the freedom I did not know I was seeking a few years later — the freedom my soul was starving for. This freedom welcomed me with warmth and open arms, and I could feel the eagerness it brought with it to release me from the shackles of my false understanding of my great God. This freedom opened my eyes to the self-empowered theology I had been fed for so long. Too long. This freedom invited me to stay and make myself at home.
Our joy is found in the One who sustains — in his being, his perfection, his friendship and his love! The Lord longs to be the desire of our hearts . . . our true delight. He rejoices when we live in such a way that reflects the abounding truth that all we will ever need is found in him.
Elle Cardel is the founder of the global online women’s ministry Daughter of Delight, a growing community of 170,000-plus women of faith. Elle lives on a mission to help others learn and love Scripture via the Daughter of Delight podcast, daily devotionals woven around the Word and free biblical resources, all of which you can find at her website, daughterofdelight.com. You can connect with Elle on her website or Instagram.
Taken from “She Delights” by Elle Cardel. Copyright © 2025. Used with permission of Tyndale House Publishers.
