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.

Desiring 2 Delight: Prelude

The next few posts are going to be dedicated to some of my learning and reflection from my summer in Sauble Beach, and what God taught be about Himself...and subsequently about myself.

I grew up in a theological tradition that had a lot of emphasis on the sinfulness of the human heart, and the utter depravity (can you guess which tradition?) of humanity. Although there was (is) a strong emphasis on grace as a theological concept in this tradition, I realized that I had not fully learned how to accept grace with myself. Yes, not only did I understand (in my head) that I needed grace and was sinful, but I did see it in my own heart and life. I was sinful. My heart was not inclined towards service, but was inclined to selfish.

I remember taking an introduction to biblical counseling course when I was in university, and, what I remember most keenly was how physically sick I felt for about a week after that course. After spending forty hours thinking and meditating, learning and reflecting on the human condition, I felt that someone had shown me the darkness of my own heart and the inclination of my flesh, and what I saw was so heinous it made me sick; I was, quite literally, carrying around with me my own worst enemy. 

Now before you all jump up and shout about the need for the balance of grace, I want you to stop and ask yourself if you truly and deeply, and honestly, have considered your own sinfulness. I believe that too often these days, we pridefully make assumptions about our own ability and our own morality. I mean, its not like we are killing anyone, or stealing. We all lead decently moral lives it seems.

But is that what God wants? Decently moral people? In my opinion, morality can be the carbon dioxide of the Christian life; it silently and slowly lulls us to sleep because we less and less believe in the need for grace in our lives. Morality is not about a relationship with God, it is a lifestyle that is meant to be a by-product of a relationship with God. Sadly though, often even the church is unable to differentiate between whether a moral lifestyle is just that: a moral lifestyle. Or whether it is a manifestation of a transformed heart.

I was having dinner this summer with a couple from a church I was working with (at), and over dinner we were talking about how church is becoming more and more irrelevant for young people. He said to me, "I just don't think that people think they are sinners any more." How true that is. People no longer think they are sinners in need of grace.

Do you honestly believe and see your need for grace? 

***keep reading next post - because this is VERY related to delight - but as someone wise once said "there is a time for everything..."