delight

Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.  Delight yourself 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 righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun.  Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him; do not fret...(Psalm 37:3-7)  


Trust.  Dwell.  Enjoy.  Delight.  Commit.  What an incredible collection of words!  And all in one place to boot.  It is almost as if, here in Psalm 37, God is trying to show us how desirable this life with him really is; particularly when contrasted with the life of fretting--which is another significant word in the Psalm.  Don't fret your way through life, but instead trust in Me, dwell in the land I have given you, enjoy the safe pasture that only I can provide, delight in me and I will give you the desires of your heart--because to delight in Me IS the desire of your heart. 

The word for fret is charah which means to be hot, furious; to burn with anger, or to kindle harsh feelings.  It is where we get the word charred.  I don't know about you, but I fret a lot.  Someone will say something that I interpret the wrong way, or I will do something that doesn't turn out quite like I want it to and bingo...fret.  It starts a fire within me that burns and stews and smolders.  One that I try to keep hidden, try to keep a lid on, which makes it continue to burn and burn deep in my heart.  Eventually it will come out, and when it does it is bound to char somebody. 

"Don't do that," David tells us, "It leads only to death."  Duh!  It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out, but still somehow I have trouble remembering it anyway.  Most notably, the death that fretting leads to is the death of your soul.  And God longs for life for us.  So he tells us that instead of fretting, "Delight yourself in the Lord."  The word for delight is anag which means to live softly or delicately; to allure or entice.  It is used of the amorous gestures of a woman.  It is a very seductive word.  It invites us into a very passionate and intimate posture with our God; a deep romancing, if you will.  That is what God truly desires both for us and from us.  When we delight ourselves in him--when we enter in to that Sacred Romance--then, and only then, will the deepest desires of our hearts be met.  So how could we possibly choose to do anything else.  Today, let's delight in him.