Utter Delight

Ready to hear from God today? Open your Bible up to Isaiah 61. Let's finish the chapter today with verses 8-11. It's short but sweet! Let God speak it into your heart as you read. This is what he is emphasizing to me:

I delight greatly in the LORD; my soul rejoices in my God (v. 10).

What do I delight in? Cowboys wins, gorgeous spring mornings, an unsolicited hug and a kiss from one of my children, a juicy, warm steak fresh off the grill, a great massage, surprising someone with a gift, getting a love letter . . . the list could go on and on (and not necessarily in that order). I delight in a lot of things, but there is nothing that can bring me more delight that God himself!

Growing up, I was around believers in God all the time. I was with them in church services, at cookouts, one on one. I witnessed a lot of worship offered to God. I saw a lot of respect given God. I heard countless prayers prayed to God. But I don't remember many times that I was struck by how much someone delighted in God. For someone to really, genuinely, from the heart just express an overflowing joy in their relationship with God was a rare moment. I wonder why that is?

I wondered about it a lot in my later teens and early twenties. I didn't want to center my life around something that was cold, austere, monotonous, obligatory, reserved, half-hearted....in short, lifeless. I wanted to live large, to celebrate life, to find something I could really delight in! Nothing less than that was going to satisfy. And I wasn't going to waste the limited years I have in this life just dutifully enduring, merely existing. I wanted to live.

Then one day I discovered what I had been missing--the thing I was searching for was God all along! I made some new friends who absolutely delighted in God, his grace, his goodness, his awesome presence in their lives!They were alive in God. It wasn't fear or duty that drove them; it was pure love. They didn't keep a checklist. They didn't feel the need to judge everyone else. They left that to God and just celebrated everything he had done for them and all that they anticipated him doing. And they served him out of that delight. I was never the same.

Why should I delight in God? The text goes on to say because he has treated me with special honor, like a bride and a groom feel on their wedding day! He has focused his affection, his attention and his blessing on me. Me? Yes, me. He turns my heart and my character from a weed patch to a flower garden (v. 11). Knowing him, loving him, being loved by him and led by him brings all varieties of brilliant colors bursting forth from my life!

God, I do so delight in you! As much as I delight in your blessings, I delight in you more! Thank you for inviting me to bask in your love and goodness and to find that you are very best of all that life offers me. In fact, you are the very source of it all. Amen.

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