Delighting in the Lord

“Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.”—Psalm 37:4 (ESV)

Delight—now there’s a word I hardly use. It just doesn’t seem to come up often in my life. Merriam-Webster defines delight as, “to take great pleasure.”

When you think of the word delight, what do you think of? What comes to my mind are situations, experiences, people, and things that often leave me with the feeling of delight—a night with my friends where there’s joy and laughter leaves me with a feeling of delight; a great meal leaves me with the feeling of delight.

What’s interesting about today’s Scripture, though, is the author, David, is using delight as a verb. David is actually commanding us to delight ourselves in the Lord. I instantly want to skip to the second half of the verse where the Lord gives me the desires of my heart. In honesty, that’s oftentimes what I want from Him. I find myself delighting in the blessings He gives me more than I find myself delighting purely in who He is.

This is an easy place to find ourselves in when we think about eternity in heaven. Heaven is delightful to us because it’s a place of perfection where sin doesn’t reign. Heaven is delightful to us because it’s a place where there will be no more sickness and no more tears will fall from our eyes. All of those things are true, but do you know why? Heaven is delightful purely because that’s where the presence of God is.

The beauty of God is we don’t have to wait to experience that kind of delight. We have the ability to delight ourselves in the Lord right now on this earth. We have the ability to enter into His presence each and every day through His Word, through prayer, and when we simply spend time with Him. The time we spend with Him in His presence transforms us. Our desires no longer are only what we desire. Our old, selfish, and prideful desires fade away. Our desires are transformed into what Jesus wants for our lives and in the lives of those around us.

The most important thing we can do each and every day is to spend time delighting ourselves in the Lord purely because of who He is and not because of what He can give us. The beautiful thing is when we do that, He promises to give to us what we desire. We spend time not just to follow some equation, but we spend time delighting in Him because He becomes the thing we love the most in this world. His presence is the thing we need most, and He freely and openly gives Himself to us.

Pause: What does it mean to delight yourself in the Lord? What are you doing to experience this delight?

Practice: One way to delight in the Lord is through praise and gratitude. Grab a pen and journal and then find a quiet place to go to. Write down three things that are praiseworthy about God (think about His character, His attributes, and who He is). Write down three things you can thank Him for today in your life.

Pray: Now, take some time to just tell Him everything you wrote down. Spend time in prayer praising Him and thanking Him purely for who He is. Experience how praise and gratitude will lead you into delighting in the Lord.