DELIGHT & DESIRE

"Delight yourself in the Lord."   Reflecting on that portion of Psalm 37:4, I was thinking about what "delight" means.  I recently was visiting my 6 month old granddaughter, Hadassah, and she is what came to my mind.  She is definitely a "delight".  She smiles and her eyes shine and when she looks at you, her face lights up.  She observes everything around her and kicks her feet up in joy, and there is no doubt that she enjoys to be with you.

So these are the questions I ask myself?

1. Do I smile at the Lord?
2. Do my eyes shine as I look to Him?
3. Does my face light up in His presence?
4. Do I observe HIs presence and kick up my feet (dance in joy)?
5. Does He know I enjoy to be with Him?

Oswald Chambers says  that there is a delight in despair, a joy in hopelessness;  and I see and talk to so many weary people.  He goes on to say that delight is knowing that there is something in us which must fall prostrate before God, realizing He is our only hope of being raised up.

Psalm 37:4 goes on says "And He will give you..." 

"He will"  means absolutely, for sure, never failing, no doubt, trustworthy, reliable, responibility.  

"Give you" ...... that means me, the one He created.

My mind and heart can't quite wrap itself around this truth.  And then it goes on and says He gives me "the desires of your heart".  Out of weariness, someone recently said to me "I don't know what the desires of my heart are anymore".

For me "Desires" are longings, stirrings, something inside of me wanting to be let out, a giving of myself which in turn takes in great blessing, not being stuck.  It's God's Holy Spirit covering mine.  It's a mystery.

"Of my heart" is:

• Longing for the presence of God 24/7 instead of visiting despair
• Relationships at peace put together by God, belonging to God, molded by God instead of trying on my own
• Wanting God to take my heart completely and transform it

(I get in the way in all of these)

God's instructions continue in this Psalm -- give Him my ways, trust, be still and wait patiently; then refrain from anger, do not fret.  That's overwhelming and failure seems inevitable.

Then little Hadassah's face & smile come to mind and I turn in abandonment to the only one who can make my face shine, my feet leap, and my heart smile. 

Fresh Joy

With a prompting from my husband this morning, with a question about being robbed of JOY, I ran to The Source of JOY and asked for some answers.  Here they are:

• The ability to find Joy is a tremendous strength
• Spend Joy with abandon
• Encouragement is a Joyous art form
• Recharge - roll down a green hillside with childlike Joy

Proverbs 8:30-31 "I was filled with delight day after day rejoicing always in His presence, rejoicing in the whole world and delighting in mankind."  Boy do I need HELP with this -- I am not rejoicing in the whole world or mankind.  Many times I think they stink.

• Absorb God's Joy more fully
• Joy - dance in the streets of Bethlehem
• The path of Joy runs straight thru the heart of pain and suffering
• Joy - fixing my eyes and my heart and my mind on Jesus, "who for the joy set before Him endured the cross"  Hebrews 12:2
• Joy - not growing weary and losing heart
• Joy is prayer
• Joy - burning with love  

Oh, how I want to burn with love.
And out of that fire Fresh Joy will be born.

I'M BORED

"I'm bored" my niece Mary said during our skype session.  And she repeated it 6 times.

Bored.  What does that mean?  I looked it up and it says world-weary, blase.  Blase means indifferent to or bored with life; unimpressed, as or as if from an excess of worldly pleasures.
Unimpressed with worldly pleasures -- when the world seems to say here I am, take me and you will be happy.

World-weary.  Weary - dissatified and unimpressed.

I think I'm bored too, and there's only one place to turn. 

Romans 12:2-5 (New Living Translation)

² Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.