Delight
the counter-balance to our heart's ache
Those who know me well know that I love words. I’m often teased for dropping complex words into simple conversations — not because I’m pretentious or trying to impress anyone, just because I have a closet full of words in my brain, stuffed full to overflowing. From basic staples to formal pieces to frivolous accessories, each one feels normal and comfortable to me, and I love trying them all on.
Maybe it’s all the reading I did as a kid, or all the Scrabble games I played with my Gramma from the time that I could spell, or my years reviewing SAT words with the high school students I taught . . .
Probably it’s all of the above.
However it started, words have always intrigued me — their meanings and etymologies, their layered connotations and cultural constructions. Sometimes a particular word captures my attention. Often it’s God’s way of inviting me to take notice.
This week the word I keep turning over, studying its facets and nuances is delight. A bit of a rusty word and maybe even a little old-fashioned, delight carries a sense of
pleasing to the highest degree
having or taking pleasure in
a profound sense of joy that draws one away from something else
That last connotation especially captures me. To be honest, it can sometimes feel wrong to delight when it seems like everything is breaking, like hope has sailed out to sea, like darkness is consuming us. And while lament and grief are valid and necessary responses in these circumstances, is it possible to hold delight alongside lament? Is there a way delight can tickle our grief and play a role in what heals us?
According to Strong’s Lexicon, the Hebrew idea of delight describes “deep pleasure, fascination, or cherished enjoyment”, the source of which is God, the eternal One, the Creator of the ends of the earth, the Lover of our souls.
We are encouraged to take delight in the Lord . . . (Psalm 37:4) God’s wisdom delights in his creation . . . Proverbs 8:31 God’s word or law is the psalmist’s delight . . . (Psalm 119:24, 77, 92, 143, 174) God delights in our restoration . . . (Jeremiah 31:20)
God demonstrates delight in his unconditional love and divine pleasure in us, his creation. We then reciprocate that delight when we know and experience God in his goodness, when we notice and express gratitude for his creation, when we love and live by God’s Word, both the canon of Scripture and the one made flesh who dwelt among us.
Delight invites us to a depth of experience; it requires presence and proximity and open-heartedness, all of which are hard to come by in a culture obsessed with screens and filters and influencers. We’ve become accustomed to a one-dimensional, proxy kind of living rather than owning and living without restraint our own lives.
We delight in a God who abandoned the glories of heaven to put on a mortal body imprisoned within skin and bone to be with us, to show us not just the way to life on the other side of these bodies, but also what it looks like to live and love through our own bodies in this very life we’ve been given to live on this side of heaven’s glory.
Delight, then, is less an antithesis, and more a counter-balance to our heart’s ache; less a head-in-the-sand avoidance, more an intentional acknowledgement of our Hope that does not disappoint.
Practicing this kind of delight resuscitates our hearts when they’re gasping for breath in this world polluted by hatred, injustice, violence, and brokenness; it drowns out the death knell that tries to convince us that all is lost or on fire or beyond saving.
Delighting reminds us that
God is good.
He is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.
His love never fails.
His mercy endures forever.
He makes beauty from ashes.
And he is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
When I stop to pay attention, to be present to God, to the people he’s put in my path, and to his creation around me, I can’t help but delight in things like,
laughing with a dear friend until my stomach aches and tears tumble from my eyes and I can’t catch my breath
the holy hush of night’s darkness giving way to morning’s dawn
a three-year-old tapping ever so quietly on the door waiting for me to discover her on the other side at the top of the steps, all grins and mischief
an unexpected, “just because” call from a long-distance daughter
a wide open, cloudless sky, the color of limitlessness and potential and hope for all that could be
green shoots rising from sleepy slumber, poking their heads out from under their bed of brown dirt as if to say, “Remember us? Winter won’t last forever.”
catching a glance from the blue eyes I’ve loved for thirty years from across a crowded room, the ever-so-brief flutter that still catches me off guard from time to time
that song with lyrics that fluently speak the dialect of my heart
poems and art that give a heartbeat to an idea or experience
Delighting helps us resist despair because delight always points us back to God.
What would it look like for you to practice delight? How could delight counter-balance your own heart’s ache? I’d love to hear from you. Drop your comment below to inspire me and others to more delighting.
Until next time,
Kerry
Delight in loving & praying for children, grandchildren & great grandchildren. Seeing God work His will in their lives. ❤️
Important stuff. Thanks, Kerry.