June 13, 2021
/The Third Sunday after Pentecost
1 Samuel 15: 34-16:13; Psalm 20; 2 Corinthians 5:6-17; Mark 4: 26-34
The Rev. James M.L. Grace
In the Name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. AMEN.
I would like to ask you a series of questions that you do not have to answer verbally, but I want you to answer them mentally, in your mind. And they are all questions about desire. When you were nine years old, what was your heart’s desire? What mattered most to your nine-year-old self?
What about when you turned twenty-one? Was your heart’s desire the same at twenty-one as when you were nine? One final question – what is your heart’s desire now? What do you want most at whatever age you are? Is your heart’s desire the same now as it was when you were twenty-one?
For most people, our desires change over time. They do not remain constant as we age from nine to twenty-one to whatever age we are now. In the psalm we read today, psalm 20, we encounter a verse which reads “May the Lord grant you your heart’s desire and fulfill all your plans.”
The psalm is considered a “royal psalm” meaning that it was written to ask for God’s help for Israel’s ruler. All the language in the psalm is geared toward asking God to bless and prosper the king and the land. It was a prayer to prosper the king – if the king is happy, everyone is happy – maybe. It is like some of the prayers we offer in church when we pray for our elected officials and for our government.
When the author of the psalm writes “may the Lord grant you your heart’s desire and prosper all your plans,” the author is asking God to bless the king. So, if this psalm is political, which it is, what purpose does it have for us? Would God consider granting your heart’s desire, even though you are not a king or ruler?
For many people today, God has been replaced as the provider of one’s heart’s desire by something more tangible: Amazon.com. Jeff Bezos, the founder, has made billions of dollars by delivering what people think are their heart’s desires to their front doors.
What do you desire? I have a friend. And he told me once that when he was 18 years old, he asked God to grant him his heart’s desire. At the very mature age of 18, my friend’s heart’s desire was to be surrounded by beautiful women. There were some additional nuances to that desire that I will leave unsaid since we are in church, but you get the idea. But here’s miracle – God answered his prayer.
God did not answer it the way my friend wanted God to answer it, nor did God answer it in a timely manner, but some thirty years later, my friend found himself surrounded by people – just not women, in fact they were all men. Men wearing Harris County Correctional Unit uniforms. Seems a far cry from an answered prayer, doesn’t it? It was not.
See by the time my friend found himself in jail, he had a debilitating crack cocaine addiction, and doing time saved his life, and now he is sober, happily married, and retired. He is helping other people, and that is his true heart’s desire. He just did not know it when he was eighteen, but God did. God helped him to find his true heart’s desire.
At the end of the day, I believe that our true heart’s desire is the same for all of us: our deepest desire, our deepest longing is to be in friendship with God and help others. Our deepest desire - once we grow out of our selfish needs for acquiring more stuff and wanting more praise and recognition – our honest deep desire is to live usefully and to humbly follow our God. Period. End of story. That is what truly matters, above anything.
There is very little in life I have certainty about – but I am certain about this. The verse in that psalm is true. God will grant you your heart’s desire, and God will fulfill your plans. I have seen God do it in my life. I have seen God do it in some of your lives.
But there is a secret to this that most people do not know. If you really want God to prosper your plans and fulfill your heart’s desire, you must do one thing. One thing. And here is the secret: you have to get out of God’s way. You have to get out of yourself. You have to sacrifice your ego. And if you can do those things, God has a lot of use for you, and God will fulfill the deepest of your heart’s desires. AMEN.