Delight & Vindication

I hope your morning went fantastically well and you're coasting toward the end of a productive day. I'm wrapping up a few hours of work at my desk at Richmond Prep. The weekend was busy! I played a concert  in New York last night. I had a blast! As always, you can check out a couple of snapshots from my travels via my Instagram account. 

In my own prayer time on the train this weekend I found myself at Psalm 37:

Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him and he will do this: He will make your righteous reward shine like the dawn, your vindication like the noonday sun.   

- Psalm 37:3-6

 

I found comfort in this scripture this weekend. It's true: if we are following Jesus, we will at one point or another find ourselves hard pressed between our faith walk and popular opinions or ideas. The comfort that is offered here in these verses is a promise that if we delightfully commit to following our Lord, we  will be vindicated! 

The scriptures are full of evidence that God vindicates those who are committed to following his way. From Genesis to Revelation we find examples of people who stood in faith - even while folks around them mocked them. We find people who were dismissed as "crazy," we find people who were tortured and abused. We find them all in the scriptures and we also find that God never failed to vindicate them! That vindication came to them and will come to us righteous rewards for delighting in him!  

If we delight in him,  we can rest assured that we are always on solid ground. We should note here that David is paying attention to the attitude that we have in our obedience: delight. God does not honor begrudging obedience. This is fundamental to understanding him. God is more concern with our internal state than our external action. An insincere act of obedience is no act of obedience to him at all. We must delight in him! We must delight in his instruction! 

This week's note is rather short but please don't let it's gravity escape in it's brevity. If we delight ourselves in God - if we learn to love him and his ways - then he promises us that he will vindicate us. He promises that he will give us our hearts' desires - the only thing that will satisfy us completely: more and more of him!  

As we set out into this week, let's look to find more ways to delight ourselves in him. Let's do our best to do what David said: commit our ways to him. It doesn't have to be a grandiose undertaking. We don't have to be overwhelmed by the thought. We can start simply by relishing him in small moments. We can start by looking for his movements in the situations we face, today! We don't have to try to be hyper spiritual or over the top. We can start to delight in him more in simple ways that have big results! We can start right now to take pleasure in our almighty, absolutely delightful God.

Critical Questions:

  • What does it mean to "Delight" in God? 
  • Is my obedience to God paired with an obedient atitude toward his direction and instruction?
  • Have I stood in my faith before to see vindication come to full fruition? If yes, how does that experience shaped my faith? Am I stronger or no?
  • How do I adjust my atitude to a delightful posture when I don't necessarily like what I've been instructed to do?