Delighting in God

A lover will so enjoy the woman he loves that he will want to please her.

It is a metaphor for prayer.  The more we enjoy God, the more we will want what he wants.  And our prayers will have power.

King David said it best in one of my favourite Bible verses - Psalm 37:4: "Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart."

This calls for action on my part - I am to delight myself in God.  How does that happen?

Obviously, I can't find delight in God unless I spend time with him.  I need to get to know him.

It is a worn-out cliche that you can't get to know God unless you study what he has given us - the Bible.  But it is still true.

Yet studying isn't enough.  I know a lot of things about the Bible, but I am not as strong at obeying what God asks of me in his word.

I need to do the uncomfortable things as well as the easy things he asks of me.  I need to forgive others; I need to show love in practical ways; and I need to act on what he is prompting me to do.

The Bible says that David was a man after God's own heart.  A remarkable statement.  It's particularly remarkable in that David sinned and did things that many of us would think would turn God away from him - adultery and murder, for example.

But a careful reading of David's life and his psalms shows us that he put God first in his life.  He was constantly in God's presence in praise and prayer.  He consulted God before taking major steps in his life - and then he did what God told him to do.  And when he was wrong, he admitted it.

I am learning, too, about sitting at Jesus' feet the way Mary did in Luke 10:38-42.  Contemplating Jesus in quietness, listening to the Holy Spirit speak into my heart and mind - these are important steps to knowing God.

I find I am blessed, as well, when I praise God for who he is and what he has done - in the Bible, in my life and in the lives of the people I love.  My faith soars and I rejoice in God.

So I am learning to delight in God in all these ways - finding out more about him, obeying him, listening to him, praising him.

If we truly delight in the Lord, as David says in Psalm 37:4, we can expect to receive the desires of our hearts because his desires are now our desires.