When Goodness Finds You

CHAPTER 8

                                                      TIME TO ENJOY

                    KEY #5—DELIGHT YOURSELF IN THE LORD 

There’s something about God that makes us want to shout, sing, laugh, dance, be still, and rest our heads on his lap as we gaze into His beautiful eyes—all at the same time.  There’s something about God that leaves us speechless—we simply don’t know what to say.  We don’t know what to do.  To delight in Him—to worship Him—that’s all we can.  That’s all we need to.  There’s something about God—our souls just can’t get enough.

                                  Delighting Yourself In God

         What a topic to try to wrap your arms around.  To delight oneself in God—what a wonderful thought!  My mind can’t embrace what to do once I have my arms around Him.  He’s too much to hold, too much to handle, and too beautiful to behold.  The language of mankind is at a loss for words.  Is it possible to experience God at such a deep level that our lives are changed forever?  It all starts here. 

Delight yourself in the Lord.  That sounds nice, doesn’t it?  It sounds appealing; the phrase offers freedom.  But Christianity is more than just a nice story.  We walk in power when we delight in the Lord because we are obeying God’s Word.  “Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.” (Psalm 37:4)  People quote this verse and get pretty excited.  It is exciting to think of God granting us the desires of our heart.  Yet it is more exciting to ponder the first half of the verse.

I’m sure you treasure the days in your life which are most memorable, as I do.  That’s true for any special day we experience, but I want to talk specifically about spiritual “special” days.  Those are days that transform your life.  We remember them as life-changing, dramatic experiences.  They are not merely experiences, but moments in our lives when God moves in such a real and intimate way, touching every fiber of our being.

Think back to some of those days in your own life.  It may have been a day of provision, where something you had been seeking God for suddenly showed up in your life.  It may have been a day of encouragement, where God sent a friend to lift you up and refresh you when you were at the end of your rope in need.  These days take on various forms.  Often it is a retreat or seminar experience, a sermon, or simply a personal time in prayer at your house.  If you are a believer, you have certainly had at least one such experience—the day you gave your life to Christ.  The longer you follow Jesus, stay connected, and walk in obedience to Him, the more of these days you will have.

When you delight yourself in the Lord, you set yourself up to experience this kind of day on a regular, frequent basis.  If that is not enough to get you interested in delighting yourself in the Lord, nothing else will.  The more you experience God, the more you are going to want to experience God.  Especially as you discover His will for your life.  That will excite you.  The result of that excitement is you choosing to delight in God spontaneously.  It will become so unplanned and natural that you find yourself doing it all day long. 

What if we approached God radically different than we do today?  What if we approached Him in a new way?  I recommend that we do just that.  And that “new” way is the way of delight.

Psalm 37 makes it clear that we are to make the Lord the object of our delight.  We cannot delight, unless we have been delighted in, and know it at the core of our being.  “We love because he first loved us.” (1John 4:19)  All three thoughts are connected, perfectly woven together by the Lord.  God delights in us—we delight in Him—He gives to us the desires of our heart.  It is a spiritual law, ordained by God.  He took pleasure in establishing it that way.  God takes great joy in giving His children the desires of their heart.  Yet there is a definite order of events that needs to take place for this to happen.  This order is God’s way of keeping us from covetousness.

What does this Christian who delights in the Lord look like?  It’s the child of God who believes that his daddy is good.  It’s the child of God who runs into his father’s presence.  It’s the child of God who does not look at prayer as a burden, but as a joy.  This child skips into God’s presence.  He is not afraid of knocking something over in the room, and getting yelled at.  He doesn’t feel like an interruption or inconvenience to God.  He is comfortable in his father’s presence.  This child of God knows how to delight in the Lord.  It comes natural for him.  He has been doing it for years.  The child waits in the throne room of the Lord, because Father God has promised to take him fishing today.  He enjoys spending time with his dad.  His daddy has always been good to him; his father has always kept his promise to him; he trusts in his father’s love.  

Did you enjoy that description?  I could be describing you, if you will just start delighting in the Lord today.  For many believers, spending time with God has become as rigid and ritualistic as brushing and flossing their teeth.  It’s done because we have to; it’s expected of us.  It’s done with very little enthusiasm or urgency, except for those times in our lives where a crisis is staring us in the face.  We apply no value to spending an hour or two with God, because we really don’t believe it will make a difference in our lives.