Delighted In

Friday is here and the weekend with it! Let God speak something to you to carry with you through it and bring you joy! Take a minute or two with me in Isaiah 62:1-5. Too soon we will have reached the end of this awesome letter from God! This jumped out at me today:

No longer will they call you Deserted, or name your land Desolate. But you will be called Hephzibah [meaning "my delight is in her"], and your land Beulah [meaning "married"]; for the LORD will take delight in you. . . . as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you. (v. 4-5)

In yesterday's blog I commented on a statement in the previous chapter about how we should delight greatly in the Lord and rejoice in our God (61:10). Now here, just a few lines later, God speaks to me and reminds us that he actually delights in me! He rejoices over me! It's easy to delight in God when you really know God. He's beyond good; he's the definition of awesome! There is so much to rejoice in about him and what he's done! But it's harder to really accept what he is telling me here--that he delights and rejoices in me. I know me. I'm just not that good. Why would a perfectly holy, infinitely loving God rejoice over me? What about me would captivate him?

For some reason we really want an answer to that question. And since we don't get one, we decide to doubt that it's true. It just seems more humble to beat ourselves up and downplay our standing with him. Some of us even make a strange sort of peace with being one of the black sheep of his family. It helps us justify our stubborn, rebellious choices or just our lack of enthusiasm about serving his mission. After all, he doesn't think much of me anyhow.

Oh but that's where we're wrong! Now, admittedly God isn't saying that he delights in and rejoices over everyone. In fact, in the context he is saying that after he takes his people through a hard period of discipline for their obstinate self-will and they repent and turn back to him, then he will delight in them and rejoice over them. Then he will renew and restore them to his favor. Then they will experience his blessing in major ways.

So the question is where is my heart with God? If I delight in him and rejoice in what he has done for me then it will lead me down a path where one thing I can know for certain is that he delights in me, too. Right now, in this very moment, God is celebrating me! It sounds conceited, doesn't it? But he said it, not me! I would never have thought he would feel that way about me, but he does.

My God, I feel undeserving of your delight, but I affirm what you have said to me here. Thank you so much for delighting in me just as I delight in you! It makes me feel so loved and honored to know this and to hear you say to me that you are rejoicing over me as I go through my days! Truly amazing, Lord! Immensely wonderful! With that truth in my heart I find myself loving to live for you! Amen.

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