Tag: delight in the Lord

Delight in the LORD Part II

Joshua 21-22

Psalm 37

Acts 9

-Devotion by Emilee Christian (MO)

Two years ago, I wrote a devotion for Seek Grow Love on one of my favorite Psalms, Psalms 37. I’m going to re-post the devotion today, but this time share some context about what was going on in my life the night I wrote it. 

I was supposed to have dinner with my brother and his wife, who happens to be one of my best friends. She was in the early stages of her first pregnancy after a long fertility struggle. That morning I received a text from my brother saying dinner was going to be pushed until later in the evening. In the afternoon, he sent a text cancelling dinner. When I asked if everything was alright, I didn’t get a response….and I knew. I knew they had lost the baby. I buried myself under 20 pounds of weighted blanket and slept for two hours. It was one of the top five worst nights of my life. I knew they were hurting. I kept flashing back to this memory of when my brother and I were really little, playing dress up, and he got his foot cut from one of the cheap plastic high heels. I remember seeing him bleeding, running over to him and calling out for a parent to come help. I wanted to run to him now, but I couldn’t. I knew they needed space. 

After my nap, I called my dad to see if he’d heard anything from them. He thought I was being overdramatic and convinced me to get something to eat. About an hour later he called, saying he got a text from my brother about them having a miscarriage. 

By this time, I still had a devotion to write. On that sad, desperate night, this is what came out of my heart: 

Almost the entirety of Act 7 is Stephen’s response to the charges brought against him from our previous reading. Stephen gives a beautiful sermon, outlining the history of the Israelite people. His sermon shows how time after time, the Israelites were unfaithful and persecuted the prophets. He asks the leaders of the high council when they will stop resisting the truth. Stephen forms a sound argument with the tools of a great orator utilizing ethos, logos and pathos. However, I want to just focus on one small line today.

Stephen retells the story of when Moses went to Mount Sinai and the Israelites rebelled. He says the Israelites, “made an idol shaped like a calf, and they sacrificed and celebrated over this thing they had made.” (Acts 7:41 NLT). Celebrated this thing they had made. That caught my attention.

How often do we get carried away with our own success? How often do we put value in material things? How often do we forget Christ’s words to seek first the Kingdom of God? (Matt 6:33). We live in an age where knowledge, entertainment, and relationships are literally at our fingertips. Not to sound like a broken record, but it is so easy to get wrapped up in our own lives, the things we can make, things we can buy. God needs to be made a priority in our lives. He is someone we need to communicate with daily, thank and praise. Otherwise, we run the risk of celebrating over the things we have made and turning those things into idols.

These things may not be physical. They also may not always be bad or wrong. Sometimes the thing we are trying to make is a dream or notion of something. Maybe a job promotion, an engagement, a family. It’s when these desires become our only focus a problem occurs. The Greek term used in Stephen’s statement is the word euphrainó which literally means to “cheer, make merry.” Our happiness should not be placed solely in these things.

The Israelites made the golden calf when Moses went to talk to God at Mount Sinai. Moses was their leader and connection to God. Suddenly, to the Israelites, God felt distant. It is then they began to see what joy they could offer themselves and celebrate with their own idols. Sometimes, God may feel distant. At times we may face periods of loneliness, sadness, even anger. When this happens, we MUST heed the words in Psalms 37:4 “Take delight in the LORD.”

The rest of that verse in Psalms offers us a promise: “Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you your heart’s desires.” I am not saying God always answers prayers for those who put their true delight in following Him. He does not. I know many godly people who have given their lives in faithfulness to Him and still face difficulty and unanswered prayers. However, I do sincerely believe when we start to delight in the LORD, when we celebrate Him, something in our hearts begins to change. We still have dreams and goals, but our heart’s desire becomes wanting a true connection with God, a deep relationship with our creator, the one who gave us those very dreams we have.

Several times in my life I have felt defeated, lost, and alone. I have had to grieve lost dreams, goals, relationships. I’ve had to mourn a life I imagined for myself. The lyrics to Phil Stacey’s song “You’re Not Shaken” describes this feeling of helplessness perfectly: “When every little thing that I have dreamed would be/ Just slips away like water through my hand.” That’s what brokenness can feel like at times. Like reaching out your hand and trying to cling to something that isn’t there. In these moments it’s imperative we take our delight in the LORD. Slowly, He will fix our gaze on something better than what we had lost. Even when that thing we lost was good.

Here’s a link to a playlist of some of my favorite songs when dealing with loss and grief:https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3QAs1OUWTnwSbRClTaV51T”

One year, three months, and twenty-four days later I sent the following text message to my dad after meeting my brother’s newborn daughter for the first time.

“She is so cute and soooo snuggly. I heard you might be going over later tonight. Ben and Becca are amazing parents. Ben gave me his phone and I took pictures of all three of them together. Watching them read to her, I had to hold back tears. It was truly a moment that shows joy comes in the morning.”

Reflection Questions: 

  1. What is something in your life that could easily become a distraction from taking delight in the LORD?
  2. How can you ensure your heart is in the right place even when dealing with grief and sadness? 
  3. Is there a time in your life you experienced loss, took refuge and delight in the LORD and experienced joy in the morning? If so, I encourage you to share with someone this week. God’s good deeds deserve to be praised and told over and over again! 

Prayer: 

Dear God, 

You are so so good. Thank You for stories like Ben and Becca’s. Thank You for the life of this promised little baby. Thank You for this reminder of Your faithfulness. May I take refuge and delight in You, and may You guide and guard my path. 

In Christ’s name,

Amen

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Delight in the Lord

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Old Testament: Leviticus 6 & 7

Poetry: Psalm 37

New Testament: Acts 7

Almost the entirety of Act 7 is Stephen’s response to the charges brought against him from our previous reading. Stephen gives a beautiful sermon, outlining the history of the Israelite people. His sermon shows how time after time, the Israelites were unfaithful and persecuted the prophets. He asks the leaders of the high council when they will stop resisting the truth. Stephen forms a sound argument with the tools of a great orator utilizing ethos, logos and pathos. However, I want to just focus on one small line today.

Stephen retells the story of when Moses went to Mount Sinai and the Isrealites rebelled. He says the Israelites, “made an idol shaped like a calf, and they sacrificed and celebrated over this thing they had made.” (Acts 7:41 NLT). Celebrated this thing they had made. That caught my attention.

How often do we get carried away with our own success? How often do we put value in material things? How often do we forget Christ’s words to seek first the Kingdom of God? (Matt 6:33). We live in an age where knowledge, entertainment, and relationships are literally at our fingertips. Not to sound like a broken record, but it is so easy to get wrapped up in our own lives, the things we can make, things we can buy. God needs to be made a priority in our lives. He is someone we need to communicate with daily, thank and praise. Otherwise, we run the risk of celebrating over the things we have made and turning those things into idols.

These things may not be physical. They also may not always be bad or wrong. Sometimes the thing we are trying to make is a dream or notion of something. Maybe a job promotion, an engagement, a family. It’s when these desires become our only focus a problem occurs. The Greek term used in Stephen’s statement is the word euphrainó which literally means to “cheer, make merry.” Our happiness should not be placed solely in these things.

The Israelites made the golden calf when Moses went to talk to God at Mount Sinai. Moses was their leader and connection to God. Suddenly, to the Israelites, God felt distant. It is then they began to see what joy they could offer themselves and celebrate with their own idols. Sometimes, God may feel distant. At times we may face periods of loneliness, sadness, even anger. When this happens, we MUST heed the words in Psalms 37:4 “Take delight in the LORD.”

The rest of that verse in Psalms offers us a promise: “Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you your heart’s desires.” I am not saying God always answers prayers for those who put their true delight in following Him. He does not. I know many godly people who have given their lives in faithfulness to Him and still face difficulty and unanswered prayers. However, I do sincerely believe when we start to delight in the LORD, when we celebrate Him, something in our hearts begins to change. We still have dreams and goals, but our heart’s desire becomes wanting a true connection with God, a deep relationship with our creator, the one who gave us those very dreams we have.

Several times in my life I have felt defeated, lost, and alone. I have had to grieve lost dreams, goals, relationships. I’ve had to mourn a life I imagined for myself. The lyrics to Phil Stacey’s song “You’re Not Shaken” describes this feeling of helplessness perfectly: “When every little thing that I have dreamed would be/ Just slips away like water through my hand.” That’s what brokenness can feel like at times. Like reaching out your hand and trying to cling to something that isn’t there. In these moments it’s imperative we take our delight in the LORD. Slowly, He will fix our gaze on something better than what we had lost. Even when that thing we lost was good.

Here’s a link to a playlist of some of my favorite songs when dealing with loss and grief: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3QAs1OUWTnwSbRClTaV51T

-Emilee Ross

Reflection Questions

  1. What in your life have you made (or are trying hard to make), but in the process you have celebrated it so much, and raised its priority above seeking God’s Kingdom, that it has gained idol status?
  2. When have you felt God was distant?
  3. What does it look like for you to “Take delight in the Lord”? Is this a priority to you? How could you do it more often or more deeply?
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Delight in the Lord

Psalm 37 4a

For this week’s devotions I’m going to focus, again on the Psalms.  Earlier this year we looked at 7 different types of Psalms and had an example of each.
This week I want to look at only one Psalm.  Each day we will consider a section of the Psalm and I’m going to invite you to use it in your devotional time.  Some of you may be familiar with the way I’m going to ask you to read this Psalm, it’s called Lectio Divina.  If you’re familiar, great!  If not, I’ll give you a brief introduction.

Lectio Divina is a Latin term which simply means “sacred reading” .  It’s been around for a long time.  It’s simply a way of meditatively and prayerfully reading a short passage of scripture in a way that leads into prayer and time in God’s presence.  There are 4 stages to Lectio Divina: Read, Meditate, Pray, Rest in God.
1.        Read.    Take a short passage of scripture and read through it several times.  Read it in a personal way.  You’re not reading it to prepare a lesson or a sermon or to share it with someone else.  You are reading it to allow God to speak to you through His word.
2.       Meditate.   As you read, choose a single word or short phrase that really speaks to you and think about it (To meditate is to chew on it with your mind, internalize it, and chew on it some more engaging your whole person, thoughts, feelings etc… think about how a cow ruminates on grass or hay).
3.        Pray.   After spending time meditating on that word or phrase and really personalizing it, then bring it to God in prayer.  Does it lead you to praise God?  Does it lead you to thank God?  Does it raise questions that you need to bring to God?  Does it call forth a sense of guilt for a sin that you need to confess to God?  Whatever it brings forth in you, bring that to God in prayer and spend some time talking to God about whatever it is that your reading and meditation has brought to mind.
4.       Rest in God.  The final stage of lectio divina is to simply bring you into God’s presence.  You know how great it is when you are with someone you love and you can just enjoy being present with them…  no one’s looking at their phone, no one’s talking or really doing anything other than simply enjoying being in the other’s presence?  Do that with God.  Just spend some time enjoying God’s presence.

That’s really all there is to it.  If you Google Lectio Divina or look it up in books on Christian spirituality you may find other fancy words like: Lectio, Meditatio, Oratorio, Contemplacio etc… They are all just Latin words that mean the same thing: Read, Meditate, Pray, Rest in God.
I hope you’ll try it this week.

I’ve chosen Psalm 37 to look at every day this week.  I’ve chosen this Psalm because I’ve been spending a lot of time this year meditating on this one Psalm, especially verse 4.

Today, I want to look at the first 4 verses:
“Do not fret because of those who are evil or be envious of those who do wrong;
for like the grass they will soon wither, like green plants they will soon die away.
Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.
Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.”

Read:
As I read through this there are several things that immediately catch my attention.  How often do I fret because of those who are evil?  Do I see the junk that people do and find myself stewing over it?  How can they do that stuff?  What is WRONG with them?
As I dig a little deeper –  Am I ever envious of those who do wrong?  Do I ever look at the rich, the good looking, the famous, the powerful and see the terrible lifestyle choices they always seem to make, and then get ticked off because they have all the goodies?  Do I envy their money or the stuff their money can buy?
How often am I guilty of looking at what other people are doing instead of looking at God and making sure that I’m doing what God has called me to do?  I see an invitation to Trust God and do what I know is right and let God worry about the results.
But it’s the last verse that really captures my heart: “Take delight in the Lord.”
What does it mean to delight in something?  Three of my grandchildren all turned one this summer.  I got to be present at one of their birthday parties, and I saw videos of the other two who live in Minnesota.  In each case it was amazing to see them “take delight” in their birthday “smash cakes”.  They would dig in, squeeze it, taste it and get really excited.  I still remember the looks of delight on their faces.
You might take delight in tasting delicious food, seeing an old friend or family member, your favorite sports team winning the championship, seeing an “A” on your paper, trying on your wedding dress (or seeing your bride walk down the aisle toward you in that dress).
God wants us to delight in Him more than anything else.

 Mediate:

Spend some time thinking about what it means to delight in God.  When have you delighted in God?  What was it like?
Pray:

Spend some time talking with God about what you’ve been thinking about delighting in Him.

 

Rest:

Now, delight in God.  Spend some time just enjoying God’s presence.

 

Pastor Jeff Fletcher