Almighty God, to whom all hearts be open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid; Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love thee, and worthily magnify thy holy Name; through Christ our Lord. Amen.
—Book of Common Prayer 1662 (translation)
What does it mean that to God “all desires (are) known?” And, what impact does the reality of this truth have on our daily walk of obedience with our Heavenly Father?
In our increasingly secularized society, the word “desire” has taken on a lascivious twist. When most people hear this word, they immediately think of matters sexual. But, desire has a much deeper, much richer meaning in our everyday world.
King David, in writing a prayer on behalf of his people in Psalm 20, speaks these words about God:
4 May he give you the desire of your heart and make all your plans succeed.
God has a decided interest in our desires. Because our hearts are open to him, He knows our desires. One truth flows to the other. God has a complete awareness of that for which we have a “conscious impulse toward something that promises enjoyment or satisfaction in its attainment.”
As you make your way along the pathway of obedience that God has laid out before you this day, take comfort, even joy, from the reality that He knows your desires. And, be ever aware of His promise through the pen of King David who wrote Psalm 37. Take special note of verse 4:
4 Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.
The sense of this particular verse—in an acrostic poem, where each stanza begins with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet—intends to have two distinct yet interwoven meanings. God will place into your heart the desires He wants you to have. Once He does that, He will then give to you that which you desire.
God has made provision for our redemption through the precious blood of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. He then enables us to receive this gift of salvation by drawing us irresistibly into His grace through the power of the Holy Spirit, as He convicts us of sin. In this same way, we can begin each day praising God that He both gives us the desires in our hearts, and then gives our hearts' desires to us.
He is, indeed, a God to whom all desires are known.
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