Delight

To delight, in context, means to desire. I never knew that until recently. To me, delight was just a strange word that came upon me at times that I couldn't help and packaged in an orange-juice-like beverage that I always thought was bad for you. Not until recently did I realize that delight is really summed up by what you desire; the object of our truest affections.

I came across a verse recently about delight, maybe because it was the only one I knew, having heard it so often in Sunday School rooms and growing up in a Christian home. It was the famous Psalm of David, 37: "Delight in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart." I then replaced the word delight with desire and it becomes: 'Desire the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.' Suddenly, the verse made so much more sense! For years, I had seen this verse as a good bit of old wisdom or even a manipulative tool that would cause people to ask God for whatever they thought their heart desired and would get it. This time, I saw that if someone is truly delighting in the Lord, then the Lord becomes the desire of their heart. He will come and fill every gap and hole that people like me have been trying desperately to fill with relationships and money and distractions. In essence, what I believe David to be saying is that, once I am truly focusing on the Lord, it will be clear that He really is what I have been searching for, and I can delight all the more in that; in continual desire.

Just this morning I was reading about another promise that God has made, this time to Jeremiah, who I am coming more and more to respect, and really to all of Israel. He said: "Cursed is the man who trusts in Mankind and makes flesh his strength, and who heart turns away from the Lord. For he will be like a bush in the desert and will not see when prosperity comes, but will live in stony wastes in the wilderness." Conversely, He says: "Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord and whose trust is the Lord. For he will be like a tree planted by the water, that extends its roots by a stream and will not fear when the heat comes; but its leaves will be green, and it will not be anxious in a year of drought nor cease to yield fruit."

To me, that is the very picture of delight, especially when you have the opportunity to experience both in the same lifetime; you really start to appreciate being a tree by the stream, when you were a bush in the desert before. Sounds good right? A whole lot better than Sunny Delight, even more when contrasted with living water that will cause you never to thirst again.