Lessons From My GardenExemplo

Delight

It’s not all work when I visit my garden. Often, I slowly walk through the rows, admiring the growing plants and the beauty of the flowers. I pause to savor the sweet fragrance of a blossom and snap a picture of a lovely dragonfly. I smile when I notice a baby squash, and turn to admire a flitting butterfly. I am taking time to delight in, honor, and enjoy the fruit of my work—my creation. 

In the same way, your Creator delights in you, His creation! He doesn’t simply accept you or tolerate you because He has to. God’s grace and love toward you is full-on intention, attention, and personal delight in you! He celebrates you. He praises you and takes pleasure in you because you are His. 

Understanding how much He celebrates us, our response should be a mutual exchange of extravagant love and joy with our Father—delighting in Him, worshipping and praising Him, spending time with Him. 

Think about this: all true enjoyment spontaneously erupts into praise. When your child took his first steps, you shouted, “Good job! Way to go!” When your team wins, you celebrate loudly. When my grandchildren are in my presence, I smile with delight or laugh aloud at their hilarious antics. As C.S. Lewis says, “...the delight is incomplete till it is expressed.” Praise is the finishing touch—the natural response to the joy we’re experiencing—whether in lovely flowers or in the marvelous grace of Jesus. 

We may understand the concept of delighting in Him, yet taking time and effort to honor our Creator with worship and praise is often considered waste. Many times we don’t see the purpose or the effect of worship because we like to measure tangible progress of our efforts with metrics and goals. 

Jesus’ disciples had their opinions on the waste of worship in Matthew 26:6-10 (TPT). This passage offers a poignant story of the importance of “lavish devotion” when an unnamed woman washes the feet of Jesus with her tears, dries them with her hair, and anoints Him as she pours out expensive perfumed oil as an offering of her devotion to Him. 

In following this example, the true value of our worship is measured only in what we are willing to offer in response to His extravagant love for us--time, effort, humility, and surrender—our entire heart, soul, and body—all in, 100%.

Additionally and importantly, worship is warfare. Our expression of gratitude and praise for Jesus dispels dark thoughts and moods. Honoring and worshipping Him becomes a “take that!” posture which pushes back evil and deceitful spirits as we remind them, and our fears, that our Father is a conqueror. That He has defeated sin and death. And that we are His chosen child, reigning with Him in heavenly places.  

May we grow to understand the immense value of praise and worship of our King. May we see Him in the miracles and the mundane, delighting Him with our exclamations of praise. May our hearts be poured out in worship and surrender for all He has done for us. 

Are you delighting in Him, living a life of worship, praise, and surrender?

He delights in you and invites you to experience a gloriously fulfilled life in His loving presence, daily walking and talking with Him.

In gardening and in life, commitment, intentionality, and effort are necessary in order to experience healthy growth. Left on their own without constant care, each will turn back to their original nature. But when given plenty of light, water, and attention you can be certain of a beautiful outcome and a harvest rich enough to share with others. 

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