Desiring2Delight: Adagio

The Lord your God is with you,
    the Mighty Warrior who saves.
He will take great delight in you;
    in his love he will no longer rebuke you,
    but will rejoice over you with singing.

DELIGHT. What does it mean to delight? How and what does it mean to take great pleasure in something...or in someone? Well, the Lord feels that greatly about His children. Do you realize the significance of that? This isn't just a happy feeling that God gets when He looks at us. No, it is a feeling of absolute pleasure. 

I think desire and delight are strongly connected: we all want to take pleasure in something and that often is expressed in our desires. The culture we live in today tells us that if we want something, if we desire it, than it must not only be right for us, but we have every right to give into it. And so we spend an inordinate amount of time pursuing our desires, whether they are good for us or not, and giving into them. And in the process we have become undisciplined; we have become slaves to our desires and let them rule us, rather than us ruling our desires.

And in the process of losing our discipline we have also sacrificed our ability to delight. We have not learned how to restrain ourselves...because we believe that restraint, in some way, means that we are not free. And to not be free in twenty-first century Canada is unthinkable: because we are about "freedom." 

I would argue that the exercise of discipline over desires is essential for a purer expression of delight when we receive our desires. Because there is an element to delight of the unrestrained, where one forgets oneself completely, and is free to take pleasure in something or someone. Where there is no discipline necessary to hold back...but complete freedom. And it is enjoyed all the more because we know how much work it is to restrain ourselves. And so when we can be unrestrained, the freedom to be so is all the purer for it.

Take a minute and reflect on things that you delight in. If that is too difficult - start with things you are thankful for and work your way backward.