May He give you the desire of your heart
Psalms 20:4 - God responds to prayers that are in line with His plan
King David presenting a psalm to his chief musician to have it put to music. Image generated by ChatGPT (OpenAI) using the DALL·E model.
“May he give you the desire of your heart and make all your plans succeed.”
Psalms 20:4 NIV
It’s been about a month since the last time the Lord directed my gaze towards one of the Psalms, and it’s nice to be back. Today’s verse immediately started me thinking about God’s provision and the prayer ministry that Barb and I are in. It distresses me how often we see people requesting prayer for financial success or some material item, which always brings to mind one of my favorite sayings — God is not a vending machine. You can’t just put in a prayer, push a button, and have your prayer answered.
Psalm 20 is a prayer by King David for victory over his enemies. It’s a rather short psalm — only nine verses — and begins and ends with a plea for God to answer prayers:
Psalm 20:1 — “May the Lord answer you when you are in distress; may the name of the God of Jacob protect you.”
Psalm 20:9 — “Lord, give victory to the king! Answer us when we call!”
(Emphasis is mine).
David knows one thing that many of those standing at the holy vending machine don’t — God responds to prayers that are in line with His plan.
Now it may seem that King David is asking for something else, since he’s praying “May he give you the desire of your heart”. In the context of the time when David was making this prayer, he had just one desire, which was defending the people of God and his kingdom in their covenant with God. David Guzik of Enduring Word said this:
i. When our desires are in accord with the plan and will of God for us, we can pray this same prayer with confidence. We can also look for God to bring our desires more and more into conformity with His, in the course of our Christian growth.
The second part of this verse asks for God to “make all your plans succeed.” Plans always have a purpose, and in this case, David’s purpose was to have victory for God’s chosen people. His prayer was definitely in alignment with God’s purpose, so this was a very reasonable request for David to make.
As with many of the Psalms, this verse has relevance to the New Testament. Once again from Enduring Word:
i. We see this statement also applied to the great desire and purpose for the King of Kings as He went to battle to accomplish our salvation. We look to Jesus, struggling in the Garden of Gethsemane and say to Him, “May He grant You according to Your heart’s desire, and fulfill all Your purpose.”
What is the relevance to us as modern Christians? God gives all of us a purpose to fulfill in His plan. For us to be happy, we need to discover our part in this plan and fit our lives into His overall blueprint. Doing this gives us the knowledge and joy of having achieved a greater purpose, fulfilling a part of God’s intention for His creation. Many people become unhappy with God when they try to make Him fit into their plans instead!
Jesus knew His purpose and as He prayed in the garden of Gethsemane before His arrest, He expressed His understanding of both the Father’s plan and His personal part in that plan (John 17:4) - “I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do.”
The apostle Paul also knew his purpose in God’s plan and as he was nearing the end of his time here on earth, he told his friend and protege Timothy of his personal satisfaction at completing that work (2 Timothy 4:7) - “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”
If you’re feeling personally unfulfilled, your prayers shouldn’t be asking God for something. Instead, ask God to help you ascertain your purpose in His plan, and to give you the guidance to align your life with His goals.
Heaven On Wheels Daily Prayer:
Today’s prayer comes from Knowing Jesus:
Loving Father, so much of my life has been seeking my own desires, which are empty vessels, unless filled to the brim with You and with Your perfect will. May my heart and mind be increasingly conformed into the likeness of Christ, and may I grow in grace, so that I am increasingly sensitive to Your desires and make them the longing of my heart within me. In Jesus’ name I pray, AMEN.