It's Delightful (Psalm 37:4)
Dear Member of the Our Savior Lutheran Church Email Prayer Chain,

It's Delightful

Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.--Psalm 37:4

This verse is one that has been lodged in my memory since I was a child. You may know it by heart, too. Seems like everyone quotes it. When I learned it as a kid, I couldn't help but thinking it sounded really good, with overtones of blessings and whatever my heart desired, which in later years came to be symbolized in my own mind as a Corvette... even though I would always be one of the first to tell people that's not what it meant.

But it wasn't until later in life that I came to understand it on another level. Fatherhood will do that to a man in a lot of ways. When my kids were infants and dependent upon me and my wife for absolutely everything, I saw our own dependence upon God in a whole new light. And as they began to grow, I received a new take on what it is to "delight" in the Lord. Today I see that same “delight” in my granddaughters.

I of course recognized there should be joy in following God, and that He was in all ways wonderful. But never did I come into His presence like my children regularly came into mine, especially when I came home from work. The screaming, the jumping up and down, the laughing. The rush to tell me everything about their days, both the triumphs and the things they got in trouble for. The hugs, the requests to be tossed in the air or chased, the tugs to go outside and toss the baseball, the search in my briefcase to see if any treasures have found their way home with me, it all came with a priceless gleam in their eyes as they searched me to know themselves better.

That's delight.

And the Bible says that's what causes God to give us the desires of our heart? Honestly, that kind of delight, that kind of amazing high, is kind of a euphoric state of its own. I mean, what more does one need but to feel like that about God? Most days, I'd give anything to feel that kind of rush it seems my kids must have felt. And I still experience on daily basis through my granddaughters.

It's almost like that's my heart's desire.

And it's like this verse is saying that desire is right here for the very taking, that all I have to do is act on it. I'm a child of the King, and He's never away at work. I don't even have to wait for him to come home. I'm welcome to come boldly into the throne room and praise the wow out of Him. To marvel, wonder, and laugh unrestrained at His handiwork and what He's done for me. To rush to tell him everything about my day, both the triumphs and the spots where I got myself into trouble.

Admittedly, though, we do have other desires, such as physical needs being met, love, etc., and I don't mean to suggest that they're unimportant. Just that on this day just a few days after New Year's Day, I'm thinking about what the desires of my heart have actually been, and almost unilaterally, they've been about freedom. At various times in my life, I desired to be free... from depression, from sinfulness of all kinds, from lack of understanding, from loneliness, from fear. And looking back at how God set me free in each circumstance, I honestly see that I never even had to enter into those places of searching to be filled or delighted in the first place. He was all I needed. I just wasn't seeing Him as one to delight over.

This year is going to pose more challenges for me and my family, but also more growth, more freedom, and more delight. It's like they are all interwoven and dependent upon each other, just like the two parts of this verse.

REFLECTION

This week consider what your own definition of "delight" involves, and meditate on how that meshes with the truest, deepest, most meaningful desires of your heart.

Prayer Requests -- Week of January 4, 2009

FOR THOSE WHO LOOK TO THE LORD FOR HEALING

Phil Sanders Suffering from throat cancer, in discomfort
Dolly Martin Suffering from end of life health concerns - in hospice care

FOR OUR CHURCH

Please pray that each and every member of Our Savior Church and School can see where is working around and through us. Pray that as He makes that clearer to us that we all will unit and join Him in that work. Pray that we will look to Him and trust Him to provide the resources we need to carry out that work.

May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. –2 Peter 1:2-8

In Christ,
Paul Nickel
Director Of Christian Education
Our Savior Lutheran Church
 

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