Dare to Delight 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4T8GqVJPJJo

"I will wake and delight myself in You, because You delight in me" 

For some of us, waking up and delighting in the Lord comes more easily and naturally than for others. I myself have struggled for years with guilt and a feeling of condemnation that I haven't found it easy to spring out of bed at 5 am in order to spend 2 hours with God. 

I am not a morning person. I do not like any time before 10am, and cannot really be held responsible for my actions prior to two cups of coffee. I know many like me, a group of night-time people, who look in wonder at the morning people who surround us! 

It is not that morning people have been given a supernatural ability that the rest of us lack. We haven't been punished with night-time creativity, we have been wired differently, and it has taken me a long time to accept that my wiring wasn't a mistake. 

However, I should still wake and delight in Him. I have come to accept that my version of waking is acceptable to the Lord, just as much the morning person who wakes at the crack of dawn with a spring in their step. I am done living feeling guilty about how I have been made! 

But what does it mean to delight? 

'Delight' is defined as 'to please someone greatly', or 'to find great pleasure'. 

Am I willing to believe that I, little old me, can please Him greatly? I can bring the maker of the universe great pleasure? Just by showing up and hanging out with Him? 

I have learned that by showing up and choosing to delight in Him, even when I don't feel like it, that He delights in me (even though I won't fully understand this, this side of heaven). I am currently in a season of life where I am needing much encouragement. I have felt pulled in many directions and am experiencing much shaking in all areas of my life. The one thing I have figured out is how to actually take some time to just sit in quiet, and push myself to delight. Even when I feel heartbroken, or anxious, or stressed, or down. The result is that I have heard the voice of God on an almost daily basis, in what I've taken to calling 'postcards from heaven'. 

I haven't ever experienced messages coming from so many diverse places, such encouragement from the most random places and people, all just being obedient and taking their own risks. 

The challenge here is to dare to make that first step to be determined to wake, whatever time we are wired to wake, ready to engage, and choose to delight in Him. It's not easy, and it doesn't come naturally for most of us. There is always a part of us that just wants to get on with the day, myself included. 

If you dare to delight in Him, be prepared that you will learn how much He delights in you, and that will change your world in ways you can't imagine.