As we catapult into summer with the open expanse of sky and plans mingling in our minds there is something eloquent in the simplicity of this verse. Clear instruction and a big God promise at the end. That’s what we have here in Psalm 97:3-5:
Trust in the Lord and do good.
Then you will live safely in the land and prosper.
Take delight in the Lord,
and He will give you your heart’s desires.
Commit everything you do to the Lord. Trust Him,
and He will help you.
We will talk about these verses this week briefly as we launch our new series. Weathering Storms is a look into God’s promises for us in Psalms. I don’t know about each of you, but there is an array of storm clouds gathering and thundering all around my life. It looks dark from every different direction. However, I am grateful in the fact I’m in peace at least for today. I know I can’t control what I can’t control. I feel the imperative to “be still.” That is difficult for me. I understand my efforts in futility will result in nothing meaningful to keep the storms at bay. I must trust God to see me through whichever of these storms barrel in uninvited.
I’m looking forward to this series as it will provide me with fortification. Some days are easier than others to find that peace and remember what will it take to see me through. Especially, since somehow storms seem to like me a little too much and find their way into my life too frequently without enough of a respite for me to breathe deeply just for a minute in-between.
One interesting element in these verses is how important it is to trust God. We hear this over and over; we know this. Yet, sometimes life happens and it is just as easy to run off on our own accord and forget we left our trust behind. What’s so cool about these promises is it’s not a blind trust. It’s a trust that contains a clear promise. We know we are promised if we “trust” then God will be there to “help us” and we will “live safely and prosper.”
There is no gap, there is no wiggle room. It’s an “if / then” equation which I liked exponentially better here than I did in advanced math class back in the day.
If we then He
It’s actually immensely simple.
And, even better, we only have to figure out our own part. No responsibility for anyone else. It is clear. If we / then leave it up to God and something good will happen. When do we ever get to just worry about our own part anymore? I don’t know about you, but that answer is easy for me. Never. Do you recognize what a big win these verses are for us when we apply them to our lives? If we take them to heart?
If we believe in our God and all that He is, we know He is one that keeps His promises to His people. Even the most difficult promise of all for a Father which was to send His Son to die so we can all live. If He was going to start breaking promises, He may have been more tempted to break that one where He had to watch His Son die a horrifying, painful criminals’ death.
Yet, He didn’t waver. He fulfilled that promise for us.
How much easier and fun it must actually be to fulfill the promises He’s made like the one above. If we trust, He gets to keep us safe and make sure we prosper. How cool would it be if we could do that for our own kids or whomever we love? We would jump on that opportunity in a second. How much faster must our God be to pounce on this promise to fulfill it when He has all power and every resource within His grasp? He’s waiting for us to do our part. He is ready for us to do our part. He believes in us and knows we’re equipped to do our part. He equipped us so we could.
If we delight in Him, he gets to give us our heart’s desires.
How cool is that? Delight = a gift as a reward. What? That’s craziness!
Take delight in the Lord and He will give you your heart’s desires.
Now that’s just the easiest if/then equation imaginable.
Sort of.
Almost.
Well, it should be.
Delight = heart’s desires.
Happy = Happy
What’s stopping us?
We have to remember to delight? Ahhhh, and if that’s not a challenge enough, we have to know our heart’s desires.
That’s where we get tripped up.
Here is where I can help. We’re going to talk, this week, about how to make a habit of finding ways to “delight in the Lord.”
Is it?
- Remembering to check out the sunset or sunrise.
- Think.
- Take delight.
- Remember to be consciously grateful to our God who paints a different picture for his world every single night across each time zone.
- Appreciate.
- Really looking at the nature
- It’s all around us
- Can we start delighting in a magnificent God who loved us so much He decided to make everything different and beautiful in its own right?
- Think. We need trees for photosynthesis & oxygen. Do we need different trees? No. We just need water, sun and some leaves doing their thing. We don’t need diversity. We don’t need color. We don’t need different shapes, sizes, design.
- We Floridians don’t need palm trees. We need trees for oxygen, not for beauty.
- The difference and the beauty is the extra gift He gives us. The extra bonus.
What is your bullet? What can you do more of to bring you closer to God. Is it music? Is it art? Find your thing and do it.
What is delightful to you and how can you find God in that?
That’s all it takes, it’s not a special formula.
Build the habit to do that and you’ll start a journey that includes you reaching the true desires of your heart as you walk. That walk just gets better.
The challenging part is the knowing…. we think we know but do we? What are the true desires of our hearts?
Let’s think on that this week. Make a habit of finding delight in God. When you’re successful in delighting you’re going to see a change.
That’s the knitting of our life story. We control the knitting needles. We make the choices that define the quality of our lives. Make your each day the best one you can, and you’ll be knitting a lifetime you will look back on with satisfaction.
We only get one try at this life thing. We’re getting older each of us each day. It’s too late to change yesterday, but we can change our course for today – each day if we wake up and remember to delight.
Let’s talk this week about what delight means to each of us and what is holding us back. Getting good at delight, will change your life. I can promise you this with all confidence because He promised us first!
Can’t wait to delight with you! Man, our God is good.
purelyjoyous living 