God Speaking

“Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:4)

When my two granddaughters were little girls my daughter worked on a Saturday and as she had to begin work at 8am, babysitting became a problem, so my husband and I agreed to mind them, if she would drop them off to us. We live in a condo so we made sure our door was unlocked opening on to the corridor and the Saturday ritual began It was always the same, we would hear them long before we saw them, as they pounded down the corridor, and then the door would be flung open with the cry, “We’re here!” (just in case we hadn’t noticed). There was such joy on their little faces at the thought of spending time with us and the feeling was mutual. They expected to be loved. They expected their grandfather would protect them. They expected to be comforted if they fell and bruised themselves. They were expecting us to delight in them and they themselves were going to delight in being with us.

Those two little girls are now teenagers, but I was thinking back on those days when I came across this verse,

“The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing” (Zephaniah 3:17)

I love this verse and always get a mental picture of the sturdy arms of a father, quieting the restless baby, just with the strength of his love and the soothing of a lullaby, but it also reminds me of how much our own Heavenly Father wants to delight in us. So how do we approach our time with the Lord? Do we see our time with him as a time of mutual delight? Do we approach our prayer time in eager anticipation of the joy we are going to experience and also to expect to give joy in return? Too often, many of us have been influenced by others’ ideas about a stern Father figure who demands obedience and any approach of expecting mutual delight is crushed by this misconception.

During my quest to understand this beautiful word “delight” I consulted a concordance and was amazed at how often the Lord impressed upon his people that he delighted in them. I then went to the dictionary to find that the dictionary defines it as; “to take great pleasure in, to be highly gratified by, to enjoy greatly” I also discovered that those that had this close relationship with the Father were in turn delighted with him.

“I delight greatly in the Lord; my soul rejoices in my God…” (Isaiah 61:10)

Knowing that someone is just waiting to enjoy you certainly puts a whole new perspective on the relationship. Knowing that the Lord is eager to receive our love and is longing to take great pleasure in us, releases us to experience great intimacy with him. Knowing that the door is always open and his welcoming presence never changes makes it so easy to run in joyfully and cry. “We’re here!” and to expect his gracious out pouring of love.

This very old hymn reveals the Father’s love.

Absolutely tender

Infinitely true

This is God our Father

Understanding you

Absolutely lovely

Exquisitely near

This is God our Father

Nought have we to fear.

Related articles

• A Test of me (poetryfromabove.wordpress.com)
• God’s Love For Us (ptl2010.com)
• Drowning in Your love O Lord… (loveletters2christ.com)