“He brought me out into a broad place; he rescued me because he delighted in me.”
Psalm 18:19 (ESV)
The other day I was spending time with God sharing what was laying heavy on my heart. It was a Sunday morning after an online church service had finished and I was troubled. It was not the rousing Vision Sunday sermon for that fed me with inspiration. Rather it was an assault of shameful awareness at my own limitations, weaknesses and the modest and at times reluctant nature of the acts of service offered to God compared with others. Added to this was a surge of grievance and frustration directed unfairly at God for the feeling like he wasn’t fully meeting my needs. So there you have it, I wasn’t in the right head space and my focus had drifted away from truth and established itself on stormy waters instead!
However, as I invited God to speak through the Holy Spirit, I was reminded by the Lord of a central and precious truth that sent me running back to him with joy and thankful and reverent gratitude. God reminded me that he delights in me. Even though I have just poured out my heart and my weaknesses and frustrations and disappointments in stark fashion. There still fully present was the heart-melting delight of the Lord.
“For the Lord your God is living among you. He is a mighty saviour. He will take delight in you with gladness. With his love, he will calm all your fears. He will rejoice over you with joyful songs.”
Zephaniah 3:17 (NLT)
God’s delight is an ever-present source of comfort and living water for each of us especially when our souls feel starved of being enough in our own or other people’s eyes. Though obedience to him, choosing intimacy at his side, sharing his love and kindness with others all bring a smile to our Father in Heaven, his delight is not conditional on our performance. It is simply present. Why is this? No other reason exists but the heart of a God expressed in the finished work of Christ, the hope of glory within us. Such a divine heart was so filled with compassion and love that God’s presence came to walk amongst us in Jesus who throughout his ministry demonstrated the heart of God the Father to heal, reconcile and save what was lost. It would find its ultimate expression on that lonely road to and place of death upon the cross that Jesus took for humanity. Through this act that cost God so much, every sense and manifestation of our insecure, shame riddled, pervasive and broken unworthiness was remedied by God himself. The delight therefore of the one that loved me and you first that causes love to overflow from us is not therefore a forlorn hope. Rather it is a daily reality with its solid foundation as Christ himself, our living redeemer and author and perfecter of our faith in him.
We need only look to this overflowing divine heart of God whose delight in us thaws our own hearts and multiplies our delight for him and our yearning for more of him. Such is the goodness and kindness of our God. For in the meeting of perfect justice and perfect mercy at the cross God himself has made us who opens the doors of our hearts to Jesus, the objects of His delight and affection.
This is one of the greatest testaments to the fundamental compassionate heart of the God we worship.
“We love because he first loved us”
1 John 4:19 (NIV)
©B. Trowbridge, 2021.
Abba's Dearly Beloved 