God's Gift: The Desire of Our Heart - Zambia

Psalms 37:4-5 Says "Delight yourself  in the LORD, And He shall give you the desires of your heart.
  Commit your way to the LORD, Trust also in Him, And He shall bring it to pass."
Throughout the years, God has used this verse to speak to Velda and I. In 2007 God put a desire in our heart to serve Him as missionaries and a love for the people of Zambia. Since then, we have been waiting on the last part of this verse, "And He shall bring it to pass". If we delight ourselves in the Lord, trust in Him, and commit our way to Him, why would He delay in bringing it to pass? You see, when we become His children, He gives us many desires; serving Him, worshiping Him, glorifying Him, desiring others to know Him, etc. These are all good and noble things, but I do not believe these or any any other desire is what this verse is talking about. In Matthew 6:33 Jesus says "But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.". I believe God will not only provide for our needs, but He also delights in giving us our desires. Now before you throw me under the "Prosperity Gospel" bus, let me say that He delights in giving us our desire when we delight in the things that He delights in. (i.e. worship, serving Him and others, glorifying Him,...) It is not a matter of desiring these things more, it is a matter of desiring Him more! I realized that serving in Zambia, should not be the desire of my heart, God should be. The first part of of both these verse say " delight" and "seek", if I delight in Him, if I seek Him, if He is the desire of my heart, He will give me the desire of my heart, which is more of Himself to delight in! Isn't that a beautiful cycle? If God is THE desire of my heart, then God's desires become my desires, and all that God desires comes to pass.

So what does this have to do with us going to Zambia? When we started this whole process, we always said we would love to serve in Zambia, but we want to go where God wants us to go. We did not want to choose Zambia, we wanted God to put us there if that is was the desire of His heart. So when asked by SIM where we felt called to serve, we stated we loved Zambia, but we just want to go where God wants us. As we began the placement process we started with Zambia and how we might be able to serve there. Initially it did not sound too promising due to different circumstances, but then SIM Zambia expressed interest in us filling the position of Short-Term Coordinators. We were excited about the possibility of serving in Zambia, but were apprehensive about filling a role that was not what we had initially envisioned. We envisioned being church planters, so we continued exploring other countries and opportunities. That exploration led us on a vision trip to Malawi. It was an eye opening trip for us and you can read about it in a previous blog post, but in a nutshell, God used it to show us that He had another role for us. We were now faced with the realization that we not only needed to be obedient to "where" God wanted us, but also to "what" He wanted us to do. As we prayed about the where and the what, God kept pointing us back to Zambia. While in Malawi, we got to have a long talk with the Short-Term Coordinator there and got good insight into that position, we met some wonderful short-term missionaries and saw how God was working in and through them. We  also realized how well we were always prepared and taken care of on our trips and how short term missions impacted our lives. We asked the Zambia filed to consider us again for the position of Coordinators of Associates, and they graciously accepted us. Now we get to do another desire of our heart and that is seeing the impact God can have in and through short term missionaries and teams.

 So what did I learn from this? When we delight in the Lord, when He is the desire of our heart, He brings to pass all the desires He has placed in our hearts. In His time, In His way and for His glory.