Delighting in the Lord's closeness and being full of love and laughter

I have been thinking a lot these last few days about what Psalm 37:4 commands: ‘Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart’. I started reflecting on the whole verse but then got caught up meditating on the first half – so chewing it over and wondering what it means exactly to delight in the Lord. The dictionary says that delighting in means ‘to be pleased greatly by or take great pleasure in’. Then, it occurred to me how I have often found delighting in the Lord difficult when I see God as a distant creator of the universe. Contemplating this aspect of God can inspire awe certainly as I think of the incomprehensible immenseness of the universe, but I wasn’t so sure aboutdelight. Being delighted in the Lord seemed at best an odd way of describing being awe-inspired by the creator of the universe, but at worst a plain miss-hit.

So I thought about it again, and prayed about, out of which God has shown me a different way to see him which has indeed delighted me! It is one thing to contemplate the far off distant God (which we all need to do to ensure we are healthily awe-inspired), but he has instead invited me to see him as being also close - as being full of the love and laughter that I can experience on a daily very down-to-earth basis. As it says in 1 John 4:16: ‘God is love’ so we can also see God in the love of our friends, in our family, in strangers, in neighbours, work colleagues etc! So, whenever anyone helps you, is concerned for you, enjoys your company, loves and laughs with you, and you do the same back, then you are participating and delighting in God’s presence and in God’s wonderful life for us (whether we are aware of this fact or not). In other words, when we love others and enjoy others loving us back, it is as if we are coming to God’s party (his all-year-round Christmas party) and joining in the fun, and by so doing we are keeping his party rocking! This is the party of sharing our wonderful lives, and of delighting in each other, and in God. That he then gives us the desires of our hearts I guess follows from us enjoying his party and not spoiling it!

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