Notes from Beth Moore Simulcast Aug 28 and 29, 2009

Psalm 37
History/Background
David's wrote this psalm...think of his personal history and all he had been through as a shepherd, in the caves running from Saul, tall that happened as he became King, his sin, and then becoming a man after God's heart....He wrote this psalm toward the end of his life (vs 25...I have been young but now I am old) and he summed up everything by saying...God can be trusted....and David had never seen the righteous forsaken.

Key verse-Psalm 37:4 Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.
Beth had us take a few minutes to think about our desires.
There are 7 facts about this verse.

#1 Nothing dictates our lives like our desires.
At the end of the day-people do what they want to do...

So what are OUR desires? Did you notice the verse doesn't say...He will give you the desire of your heart...but it is plural...the DESIRES of your heart!

Psa 38:9 says All my longings lie open before you, O Lord, my sighing is not hidden from You.

God knows what they are....we can be open with Him. Don't give up on your desires.

What is a legitimate desire? A sustained longing unaffected by moods or circumstances. (think about that for a minute)

In today's world, we are used to our desires being met immediately....Most of the time, God's work is slow...He doesn't work within time limits...This is where she said...Don't give up on your desire!!!

Here she went to the audience and had some people share..one lady has been praying for something for 25 years...Beth hugged her and said...Don't stop praying!!!

#2 Beneath the desires of our heart is the heart of our desires.
This was kind of hard to grasp but I will try my best.....
What do we truly desire? Then look underneath THAT....God is after what we TRULY desire underneath that....her example...if you wish your husband was a more godly man and you think about it all the time...maybe what you truly want is to be a more godly woman in your own life.....that was a shallow example and to be honest, we all talked about it later wondering if we understood what she meant...
Most times, our desires are a hint of what really lies underneath in our deepest self and is far more important than what we THINK we want....God wants to get under there...to the meat of what we need and want...

Here is where she starting talking about unanswered prayer...she asked...have you prayed about something and you KNOW it is God's will and you wonder why He has not answered....if we have prayed and God has not answered over time...you can be assured that something is UP! Reasons you may still be waiting...
For us....our destiny may be at stake......
For God...His glory may be at stake.....

This struck me.....If God isn't answering...in the absence of the answer...what is PRESENT? Or you can say it this way....What is present in the absence of the answer?
God has SOMETHING there...He has not forsaken us..He has not forgotten us...we are not alone....
What we are lacking will be used for our destiny...for every desire implies something we lack...and God is always sowing, reaping or harvesting...He esteems our longings...Wait a little longer....Don't give up on Him! See what is happening as you wait.

#3 Delighting in God adapts our desires with inevitability.
This is where the promise of verse 4 comes in....Delight yourself in the Lord and HE WILL GIVE YOU THE DESIRES OF YOUR HEART.
It's inevitable..it's a promise. We adapt or we adjust....We come to desire what He is truly after in our lives...we find out true heart's desires...and He will answer.
Psa. 37:23, 24 If the Lord delights in a man's way, He makes his steps firm; though he stumbles, he will not fall for the Lord upholds him with his right hand.
The Lord delights in us and we in Him. We should pray DAILY..."Give me a heart that delights in You." Beth prays it every morning.
We think to ourselves, "How can I delight in a world gone mad"? But God sees ALL the madness in the world...alll the burdens...but He looks down and sees a mom teaching her little one a bible song...and God delights...He sees a little girl writing her prayers down in a journal and He delights...He sees an older couple still in love and He delights...When He sees a woman, so hurt by life that she can't bear to hope again....too hurt to trust God one more time...but she gives her trust to Him anyway....He delights in her. He delights in us.

Circumstances may not change but we can! Look for God events in your life...a discovery that changes the way you look at life.

#4 Nothing external can steal our delight.

Other people don't have the right to steal our delight but we give that right to them. Don't!! If our delight is gone...look to yourself.
If we are going through a season of a lack of delight or joy...look inward, not at others.

There are three things that steal our delight...and the word "steal" here means to take a bit out of....so she thought of our jaw..which bites..to help us remember what steals our joy.

J Jealousy Psalm 37:1
A Anger Psalm 37:8
W Worry Psalm 37:1, 7, 8 (Fret)

Jealousy- We can be jealous of the wicked who seem to prosper and in other people who excel or have what we want. Jealousy comes from a lack of security. It's a from of desire tinged with resentment.
You can't give way to jealousy and feel delight.

Anger-What are you mad about?
Those who have no control use anger and most of the time it DOES work.....but it doesn't bring you love (which is what is most needed) and it distances others from you. Anger NEVER works in a relationship.

Anger is the opposite of pleasure.
Anger and Pleasure are both powerful and strong but complete opposites. Anger steals and malforms our desires...an angry person doesn't even really know their desires.

Some have such a lack of passion that they'd rather be MAD then DEAD...then they are at least feeling SOMETHING. We are created for a holy passion. If we don't have a holy passion, we will subsitute something else for it.

Anger can also have an element of grief in it. Grief is a type of loss. In most anger there is an element of sadness but there is more control for that person to be mad, rather than sad.

If you are angry...speak your peace to God about it....get it all out and then get up and get on with things.

Worry-the word "worry" or "fret" means to eat or gnaw into...or to affect something by gnawing it to death...but it doesn't change it.
We don't really, truly have a lot of control in our life...we only have an illusion of control. But if we are worriers, then we won't know our true desires because we want everything to be fixed for our happiness.......


When we are in a crisis of faith there are two extreme ways we'll default. (mostly having to do with your personality)

Repression-------------------------------------------------------------Rebellion
Repression will make you sick Rebellion will make you stupid in what you do &say



We have to be real....don't keep things inside We have to be to be reverent-He's God


#5 To make room for delight, we've got to commit.

37:8 Commit your way to the Lord, trust in Him and He will do this...

In Hebrew the word COMMIT means to "roll". We ROLL it on to God's shoulders...

Take what makes you jealous, makes you angry or makes you worry and ROLL it on to His shoulders...we need to STOP our unbelief and commit to Him.

#6 Nothing is passive about patiently waiting for our desire to turn into delight.

The Hebrew word for wait is not passive...it means to press into.

Beth gave two testimonies here...she asked if we remember her talking about a close family member who was an alcoholic...they lost everything..their home, their family, they had nothing...lived on the streets for YEARS...they felt unloved even though they were loved by family.....they were alcoholics for DECADES...and Beth had been praying all these years...and never gave up....as of Saturday, this person had been sober for 140 days! What if they had stopped praying..though it had been too long....that nothing would every change....but it did.

The other one was about her husband...I remember she has said a couple of times that she wished her husband cared more for spiritual things...she has prayed for Keith to be a lover of God's word for 30 years....she had tried to his "holy spirit" and had left verses around and done all she could do but nothing happened....until a year ago...out all of the sudden he dived into God's word and is everything she has always wanted....but it took 30 years! Don't give up! We need to get out of the way and let God.

Psalm 37:7 Be still.... the word "refrain" in vs 8 means the same thing....it means "Stop it!! Have you ever gotten down to your little one's level, looked them in the eye and said...."Stop it!! That's what this meants...Be silent. Hold your peace. Sometime we are begging and pleading with God and he says.....Stop talking! Be silent...Stop it!!!! Sometimes we are all talk and not hearing!

37:7 wait patiently....(this means in anxious expectation)
The hebrew word is Chiyl...means to twist or twirl....like when you stub your toe and you are dancing around...twisting about in pain...but as you jump in pain...you yell...I am trusting you anyway God! When we are in pain...trust.

Prov 25:27 (from The Message) says...glory piled upon glory is not good for you.
It's like with our kids...if everything goes right with them all the time...you pray they win that game, they never lose, they never get sick, they always come out on top...then they won't learn what they need to learn....they won't be a person of character or have strength through difficult times....so Beth prays for her kids and grandkids....protect them from Evil but not from your Glory....whatever they have to go through for God's glory..she wants for them...same for us...we sometimes go through difficulties for God's glory.

#7 Til Faith becomes sight, trust God and do good.

Faith WILL be sight! For "none that put their trust in Him will be put to shame".

When we look at God with our eyes some day...we will wonder why we didn't pray bigger, trust more!

Psa 37:3 Trust in the Lord and do good.

It doesn't say trust in the Lord and do RIGHT. It says do good.
In our world, good is despised. Doing good accomplishes nothing but doing good even makes evil take note. The world despises us for being good but it can't say anything when we do good.

vs 3 says "dwell in the land" Someday, Jesus will reign...until then live where He has put you now.

"enjoy safe pasture" Feed off His faithfulness!!