A Single Reflection
Column by Eileen Hershberger

Trust in the Lord and do good;
Dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness.
Delight yourself in the Lord;
And He will give you the desires of your heart.
Commit your way to the Lord,
Trust also in Him and He will do it.
He will bring forth your righteousness as the light
And your judgment as the noonday.
Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him;
Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way,
Because of man who carries out wicked schemes.
Psalms 37:3-7 (NASB)

If you are like me, you have read these verses a million times (with a bit of cynicism) and thought, “Yeah, it says that God will give me the desires of my heart, but I don’t really think He does. After all I am still single, aren’t I?” A while ago, I was reading in Psalms and got to thinking about what it is really saying here. I have always believed these verses to be true, but I found myself over the years just skimming them and not really reading them. This day was different. I began to really read all the verses (not just verse 4) and discovered this says a lot more than just God giving me what I want!

First off, verse 3 tells me to TRUST in the Lord and do good. Then in verse 4, I am to DELIGHT myself in the Lord, COMMIT my way to the Lord (verses 5-6), and finally REST in the Lord and wait patiently for Him (verse 7). So I wondered, what do each of these words really mean and how can I apply them to my life?

TRUST, according to Webster’s dictionary, means ‘an assured reliance on the character, ability, strength or truth of someone or something’. Think about it. An assured reliance on the character…of someone. What do I know, what am I assured about God’s character? I know He is wise, good, holy, loving, merciful, just; the list goes on and on. Surely, someone with all these character traits is someone I can TRUST, someone who will not let me down, someone who is reliable. There is not a man in the world that will have all the character traits of God, yet I sometimes think that God cannot be trusted (foolish person that I am!) I need to ‘Trust in the Lord’ and then ‘do good’. Am I doing that? Am I trusting and doing good? Or am I floundering with distrust and selfishness (the opposite of doing good) and all the while wondering why I am so unhappy and struggling with life on a daily basis?

If someone asked you to define DELIGHT, how would you define it? I had no answer myself, so I looked in my handy-dandy Webster’s dictionary and found this definition: a high degree of gratification or extreme satisfaction. Do I look at God this way? Is he my gratification and does he bring extreme satisfaction to me, or do I view him as someone who is withholding the desires of my heart? The other thing that stuck me with this verse is that it does not say, pray and I will give you the desires of your heart. It does not say, have your devotions everyday and I will give you the desires of your heart. It does not say go to church and I will give you the desires of your heart. It says DELIGHT yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. DELIGHT, find your satisfaction and gratification in Him and He will give you the desires of your heart.

Next on the list was COMMIT, and by this time, I wasn’t sure if I really wanted to know the definition of the word, but I had come this far so why not? COMMIT is defined as ‘to put into charge or trust’. Wow. Was I gonna put God in charge of my way (my life) and (here’s that word again!) TRUST him? It is so easy as single women to think that we have to do it all ourselves. We forget that God the Father is waiting for us to COMMIT our way to Him and TRUST Him. He wants to bless us with our heart's desires, but we are so busy doing everything ourselves and without Him, we rob ourselves of the very joy and fulfillment we work so hard for.

And it all ties together with the last verse; REST in the Lord and wait patiently for Him. REST: what does it mean to REST in the Lord? Webster’s definition of rest is ‘a bodily state characterized by minimal functional or metabolic activities; freedom from activity or labor’. When is the last time you felt a freedom from all your activity? I am beginning to see that to REST in the Lord, means to stop trying to fit my plans into my life and let Him lead me and take me on this journey called life, knowing that I can TRUST Him. And as I learn to DELIGHT in knowing Him, I can COMMIT my way (my life) to His keeping and REST, knowing that I am exactly where God wants me and I need not fret or worry about being single. God, the one in whom I delight, will always take care of me and give me those desires of my heart.