Dear Fellow Students,

            Do you ever think about your future? I’m sure everyone does. We think of what our life will be like, the people we’ll meet, and a future spouse. When I think of my future, I think of my desires being fulfilled. More than likely, everyone at our age has college, marriage, or a dream career as our desires.

            In Jeremiah 17:9, it says, “The heart is deceitful among all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?” Wow. I don’t think I would like my life’s decisions to be made by the impulses of a heart that is “deceitful,” and “desperately wicked,” would you? “Who can know it?” There is no person on earth who can know a man’s heart; no one can really know and understand what our true desires are. Yet, God can.

            Solomon, in 1 Kings, says of God, “for thou, even thou only, knowest the hearts of all the children of men.” (1 Kings 8:39). God is the only one who knows our heart, in which lay our desires. We can make a pretty good guess at it, but we never know for sure whether the thing we desire is in God’s plan for our lives. But, it’s not like you are leaving your future in the hands of a stranger; God loves you and knows you better than anyone! Talk to Him, and be reassured that He will only allow those things into your life which will mold you and shape you into who He wants you to be.

            There is one little verse in Psalms that I have clung to for a long time. I hope that you will think back on it, and that it will give you the excitement it gave me. Psalm 37:4, “Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.” Be careful; do not allow yourself to fall into the trap of saying, “Oh, delight myself in God, that means be happy right? That’s easy.” It’s not like doing A, B, and C, and then God, boom, gives you the car that you wanted. This is called expectation, and Proverbs 11:23 warns against that. “The desire of the righteous is only good: but the expectation of the wicked is wrath.” The righteous desire things; the wicked expect things. We cannot expect something to happen that we don’t know about; we don’t know what our desires are, so we can’t expect them to be fulfilled. That’s like planning your life. Leave that to God, not a deceitful heart.

            God knows our desires; we never can. Trust Him in that, and delight yourself in Him. Basically, delighting yourself in Christ means to be joyful in the fact that He is who He is; the Creator God, the Everlasting Father, someone who loves you more than you do yourself. Let Him be your source of happiness. The plan that He has is too wonderful for a human heart to understand. Don’t let yourself get bogged down in trying to get the things you want. In His due time, God will fulfill your desires. Delight in that fact; be excited, and watch carefully. Every door God opens or closes just brings us a step closer to revealing what He has in store for our lives when we delight in Him.

Sincerely,

Taylor Simpson