Delight {2015}

The Holy Spirit allowed one word to jump out at me last month.  I was praying for a word to carry me into the new year...one full of hope and fresh possibilities.  I wanted a new word that I could focus on as the Lord becomes new things to me in 2015.

DELIGHT.

It came before Herb's passing into Home.

I just keeping thinking about how tender and sweet God was to give me a word that sounds so hopeful, vibrant, fun, loving, and alive...all before the grief shattered my heart. He is always going before us, planting seeds.  Seeds of life.

 artwork by Alisha Gratehouse

I wonder what emotions come to the surface when you think of the word delight.  Perhaps a newlywed couple, hurrying off to their honeymoon.  Or maybe a mother with her fresh new baby against her skin.  I think of unending love.  Unspeakable joy.  I think of pure giddiness that overrides any bad circumstance.

The verse that is on my heart the most is Psalm 37:4:  "Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart."  At first, I didn't want this to be "the" verse because it seems worn out and overdone.  I guess I wanted something I had never thought about before.  But, maybe the Holy Spirit wants to show me fresh things.

The word delight is a command.  A verb.  An action.  It requires something of me.  It requires all of me. It requires the mask to be taken off and the real, hidden, treasured parts of me to rise to the surface.  There is no such thing as false delight. It is either going to be with all of me or none of me. That is the beauty of all-encompassing and unashamed love.  It strips us bare and we are better off for it.

"Delight" in Hebrew is "anag."  It means all of this:

To be delicate and feminine
To be pliable and sensitive
To be dependent on God
To derive one's pleasure from God
A desire to be molded and shaped
A quiet form of admiration
Sheer enjoyment of the person of God
To be luxurious and soft
To pamper
To treat delicately
To be happy about
To sport with/flirt/enjoy

I guess in short, it means to be madly in love with the King.

He has called me to that.  I know the way.  Surrender when things don't go my way.  Time in His presence and Word.  Adoration and praise even when I don't feel like it.  Treating Him as if He is the best of the best.  Because He is.

"Throw away your laziness, sluggishness, coldness, or whatever is interfering with your pure love for Christ.  Make Him the Source, the Center, and the One who encompasses every delight of your soul.  Refuse to be satisfied any longer with your meager accomplishments. Aspire to a higher, a nobler, and a fuller life.  Upward to Heaven!  Nearer to God!"  Spurgeon

painting by Anne Neilson

2015:  The Year of Delight.