Praying for Your Deepest Desires - Daily Hope with Rick Warren - September 29, 2025

Daily Hope with Rick Warren

Audio By Carbonatix

By Rick Warren, Crosswalk.com

rick warrens daily hope new banner may 2022

Praying for Your Deepest Desires
By Rick Warren

"Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you your heart’s desires." Psalm 37:4 (NLT)

Persistent prayer tests your desires. When you start praying for a breakthrough, you're going to find that your prayer evolves and develops as you home in on what you really want.

Everybody has desires. The reason you have desires is because God gave them to you. All God’s gifts are good, but a desire can be misused, abused, and perverted. Fire is good in the fireplace, but fire in the wrong place can burn a house down.

There are good desires in your life, and there are bad ones too. There are appropriate and inappropriate desires in your life, helpful and harmful, constructive and destructive. When you pray persistently, your desires are filtered, and God reveals which desires are good and which are not.

Persistent praying also shows the difference between a whim and deep desire. If you ask God for something just one time, that's not a deep desire. It's just a whim. God is not in the business of fulfilling your every whim. As your heavenly Father, he is more interested in taking care of your deepest desires.

Ultimately, God wants to give you your desires. But he also wants to make sure that he's your first desire and everything else is secondary. As you pray persistently, your heart is turned more and more toward God and the things he loves. Then you begin to desire those things that honor God and keep him first in your heart. There is almost nothing that God won't do for the woman or man who puts God first in every area of their life.

The Bible promises, "Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you your heart’s desires" (Psalm 37:4 NLT).

God is not stingy. He's waiting on you to ask! Delight yourself in the Lord. Give him your attention. When you pray persistently and filter out the whims, you’ll find that you are praying your deepest desires.

PLAY today’s audio teaching from Pastor Rick

Rick Warren is an innovative pastor, renowned author, and global influencer known for founding Saddleback Church, the Purpose Driven Network, the PEACE Plan, and Hope for Mental Health. He has written several best-selling books, including The Purpose Driven Life, which has sold over 35 million copies in 200 languages. Time magazine named Warren the most influential spiritual leader in America and one of the 100 most influential people in the world. Since stepping down from the lead pastor role at Saddleback in 2022, Warren has continued to inspire people through his Daily Hope Devotional and podcast Pastor Rick’s Daily Hope. His first book in a decade, Created to Dream, was released in April 2023.

For more Daily Hope with Rick Warren, please visit pastorrick.com!

Your Gift Brings Hope to the World

Transform your prayer life with God’s Word!

True breakthrough from the struggles of life begins with prayer—and there is no better place to start cultivating a powerful prayer life than the Bible.

Discover the biblical wisdom you need to transform the way you pray when you dive into this special collection of verses from God’s Word. You’ll be inspired and encouraged by Scripture as you learn to trust in his promises.

Drawing key verses from Pastor Rick’s "40 Days of Prayer" teaching series, this set of 52 beautifully designed cards will help you memorize God’s Word so you can access it when you need it most—and it’s our thanks for your gift today to help more people experience the transformative power of prayer through Daily Hope!

Thank you for helping share the hope of Jesus Christ. May you enjoy a time of breakthrough as you fill your heart and mind with the truth of Scripture.

*The USA IRS code permits you to deduct the amount of your financial gift to Daily Hope that exceeds the fair market value of “current offer” materials you received from Daily Hope.