Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you
the desires of your heart.
– Psalm 37:4

This verse has nourished me for many years, speaking to something deep within me, though I wasn’t always sure I understood it. It seemed to clash with other Scriptures, such as “The heart is desperately wicked above all things.” I once believed that whatever my heart deeply desired was probably contrary to God’s will.

But now I am learning that I am created in the image of God. That is the first word the Scriptures speak about what it means to be human: created in God’s likeness, created good, with power and responsibility. That is my true essence. Genesis 1 is followed by Genesis 3, the account of Adam and Eve’s disobedience, but the disobedience is not the definition of what it means to be human. Adam and Eve followed a voice external to them and then followed a path not authentic to them, departing from their true essence.

I have come to learn that the deepest desires of my authentic self, my heart, truly lead me to God and God’s will, and often are consistent with God’s desire for me. Both Teresa of Avila and Thomas Merton said something to this effect: “Find God and you find yourself; find yourself and you find God.”

To “deny” ourselves, to take up the cross to follow, isn’t denying the essential self created in the image of God, but the inauthentic self that has conformed to the external voices of culture, unhealthy family messages, sexism, racism, ageism, prejudice against sexual minorities, and other misguided tendencies. And since God never violates our true authentic being – because God created it in the first place – we can trust.

I do not need to fear what God will take away from me or what God will ask me to give up. I can listen to my heart and listen to God at the same time and find congruence, peace, healing, direction, and joy. There is always danger that I might rationalize or be willful, substituting my disordered, externally-directed self for my authentic self. But silencing that still, small voice within me is even more dangerous. So embrace your heart and let it lead you to God.

Creating God, give me the courage to listen to my heart and to you my Creator, thereby finding the wholeness and the calling of my heart. Amen.

From Women at the Well: Meditations for Quenching Our Thirst, Volume 2 edited by Linda-Marie Delloff and Bernadette Glover-Williams (Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, [2003]), [pages 16, 147, and 174]. Reprinted by permission of the publisher. 1-800-4-JUDSON. www.judsonpress.com