Psalm 37:4 Delight thyself also in the LORD; and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart.
I Peter 1:7-8 That the trial of your faith , being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried by fire, might be found to the praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ; Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now for season ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.• Psalm 37: 4 anag: delight - to be soft, be delicate, be dainty; a) (Pual) to be delicate; b) (Hithpael); 1) to be of dainty habit, be pampered; 2) to be happy about, take exquisite delight; 3) to make merry over, make sport of
Maybe it's the fall weather, a lot of heavy skies filled with leaden clouds (here in Northeastern PA we are headed toward the rainiest year on record), but when I read this verse in Psalm 37:4, I hit a wall of sorts. Day before yesterday I asked a student how she was, and she said, "Not very well, kind of depressed, and maybe it was all the clouds. She really did say that.
But it made me think about the quality of our lives. God's desire is that we live delighting in Him or rejoicing with joy, and honestly, I don't see a lot of that going around. Instead, it seems that people find it so much easier, even socially easier, to talk about how tough it is or how much they have to do or worry about or... you get the idea.
I just asked someone if they were enjoying their pregnancy and they looked at me like I was speaking Greek. Pregnancy is such a beautiful miracle, the privilege of "growing" a baby in your body, having the child of the man you love, that I don't understand how you would not enjoy it. Now, I do know that there are hard moments, but my word, what a gift God has given us to have a child, especially when you think of all of those women (15% of those who want a child) cannot have one.
I met another friend in the hall with her toddler and it was all about how exhausting it was. It made me sad because this is such a beautiful, healthy and normal little one. I say all those things because of so many women who are called to parent children who aren't. I challenged her to enjoy this little one because there will always be challenges to all the ages of our children, and honestly, the ones you face with little ones may well be much easier than the ones you face as they grow older.
All of those events made me wonder how we make God feel with all our whining and complaining and lack of appreciation of what God had blessed us with: first of all, salvation, and hope, and a future which grants us peace today, and then there is meaning for our lives because He has given us a place in the Body that is so significant the body is wounded when we walk away from that place. And we haven't even considered our health, sight, hearing, ability to walk and communicate, relationships, roof over our heads, closet full of clothing, and for most of us reading this, the freedom to worship as we wish.
Have we forgotten to or how to rejoice or delight? Is it something for little kids on their birthdays or Christmas or when we win something? I wonder what kid of day we could give God if we rehearsed what we have in Him, and then allowed ourselves to rejoice in that, to actually feel the joy and thrill of being His?
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