What's Your Delight?

Delight!
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What a delicious word. It speaks of joy, thrill, excitement. Everything pleasant.
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I've heard it said that tranquility is the most beautiful word in the English language. If so, then delight has to be a runner-up.
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What delights you?
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When I think of delight, I think of:

• Soft green grass beneath bare feet on a warm spring day.


• The first time your newborn gazes back at you.


• An evening of laughter with good friends.


• A warm, starry night when the breeze is your friend and the sky is your blanket.

The word delight is more than a word; it's an experience. It elicits a physical response: a softening of your heart, a gentle smile tugging at your lips, a willingness to set aside the day's stresses for just a moment and feel joy inside your chest.
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Isn't it amazing that God uses that word to describe

his feelings toward us?

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According to Proverbs 12:21, "Those who deal faithfully are His delight."
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He "takes pleasure in His people." That word pleasure means the same thing as delight.


Have you ever thought of God laughing with you? Clapping His hands with joy when you do something right?
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Do you ever hear Him say, "Keep going. I delight in what you're doing. It brings me pleasure"?
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It took me a long time to learn that the sentence above is the single reason for my existence. And until I learned to seek it alone, I never found long-lasting satisfaction in anything else. Success in any area was always on a limited scale. Like a drug, success feels good for a short while, but then we need more and more to keep that feeling. We strive. Try harder. Compete. Always straining to be better than someone else so we get noticed. Attention comes our way and with it, a moment of fleeting delight.
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When we seek our own delight, we are always frustrated. We're like toddlers, never satisfied with any new toy for long. We have to have something else, some other affirmation, more praise, more stuff, more something...
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We should seek delight---but not our own. When we live every moment for the pleasure of God, life takes on a new meaning. Now it's not our laughter we long to hear, it's the applause of Heaven. It's not our success we crave, but glory for the Kingdom of God. To live with the underlying thrill that we are capable of bringing delight to the Creator of the Universe is the greatest delight possible. The ultimate success.
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As I continued a dialogue this week with a young atheist who had responded to a blog post, I began to grow a bit weary. His comments grew increasingly abusive and I wondered if it was worth it. Was I wasting my time and emotional energy on someone who clearly did not respect me or what I had to say? Was there any point in continuing a discussion that did not seem to be going anywhere positive? Why go on? Why not just let him slip away and forget it?
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"Because I delight in this," came the still small whisper. "It brings me pleasure."
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Weariness left. Frustration ended. The striving had a purpose. It brought my Lord delight. If He's happy, I'm happy. What better reward could there be?
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