Enjoying God

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I’ve been in a bit of a funk recently. Illness combined with a series of disappointments has served to create a flatness and lack of motivation.

This funk also stretched into my times with the Lord. I’d been grabbing snippets of time with Him and reading the Word had become a little monotonous.

The Psalms

“Read the Psalms” was a response I heard to a question I asked a few weeks ago. So that’s what I did.

I also found a book on my shelf titled, “Deeper Places: Experiencing God in the Psalms” penned by an Aussie pastor, Matthew Jacoby, who also happens to play in a worship band called “Sons of Korah” who I’d known of for years but hadn’t listened to much of their music. Their music is entirely focused on sharing the message of the Psalms.

David is probably my second favourite person in the Bible as I’m sure he is for many of us. What I’ve always found fascinating about David is how we get such a full picture of the man: his courage, his humility, his weakness, his surrender and his passion for God. “The man after God’s own heart” is the title the Lord bestowed on Him. I would loved to have been able to sit watching David on all those lonely nights he shepherded his flock as a teenager. He played his lyre and wrote love songs to the Lord as he kept an eye out for predators and those in his flock that may have gone wayward. Or when he was stuck in his cave, a fugitive on the run, from King Saul. The contrast between the two scenes: one joyful and exuberant, the other: downcast and fearful. But one ever present, David sharing deeply with His Holy Father what he was feeling and what He knew about Him to be true.

“The psalms are an expression of what an authentic relationship looks like between human beings and God. They demonstrate what God wants. He wants relationship. God wants to love and be loved.”¹

Psalm 37

As some of you will know, verse 4 of this psalm has become important to me in recent times:

“Delight yourself in the Lord,

And He will give you the desires of your heart.”

For a long time I’d focused on the second half of the verse without acknowledging the condition the first half stipulates.

As I read the complete psalm yesterday, it struck me that my prayer life, bible reading and church had started to feel like a chore.

And then it hit me.

All He wants is for us to enjoy Him.

Take your imagination to those hills bathed in the light of a full moon as a young teenager sings songs of love to His God. The boy David was simply enjoying His creator and loving Father. He became fearless not because he was anything special but because he backed the Father to be ever present in moments of terror like confronting a roaring lion or nine foot monster named Goliath.

I reckon it was in those moments the boy’s heart was shaped in His knowledge of what was true about God. God is faithful and always present.

Just … being

We love seeing old couples who might be holding hands, whispering words of love, chuckling at some memory of one or other’s idiosyncrasy. They never seem to say much. They don’t need to. They simply delight in … being together.

Today I changed my routine so I went back to my prayer tower (guest room) that overlooks the backyard. And sat and waited and prayed the first five verses of Psalm 105 a few times.

I didn’t ask for anything, I just wanted to be with my Father. Be in His presence.

It didn’t take long for a smile to appear. I even laughed and cried a little.

When was the last time you just hung out with the one who loves you like crazy?

Note 1: Deeper Places: Experiencing God in the Psalms”, Matthew Jacoby, Baker Books 2013 page 26