Your Delight Can't Be Taken From You
April 09, 2020
Jennie Allen
Bible teacher, founder of IF:Gathering
We're homeschooling, I'm still working around the clock, and this season is hard. We're juggling a lot with relationships and four kids at home and I know some of you are in the exact same boat. Even if you're single, you're likely juggling work and connecting with friends via zoom and all the different things. It just feels like a unique moment where life feels a little bit chaotic. In some ways there have been days that this has really been delightful and I've had a ball and I'm so glad to have my kids home.
We're approaching three weeks and right now, we're all just kind of done. The other day, I had such anxiety, and my heart wouldn't calm down. I just want this to be over. All I wanted to do was grab my kids and go see a movie or go to the mall and just be in public somewhere. Obviously that's not really a reality. I noticed after that day, I had this shift into cynicism and just, annoyed most of the time. It was the same timing for my kids and my husband too. We were just all on edge with each other. Yesterday morning, I sat down with Cooper who's my youngest, and he had the worst day the day before. He had broken down and gotten angry several times. So I sit down and I start preaching to him, and I realized I was the one that needed to hear what I was saying. He just said, "Mom, I'm so mad. I can't go to school. I'm angry I can't be with my friends. I'm just mad." And I said, what does it look like to trust Jesus in this? And he said, "I don't know. I've been talking to him and he is not talking back, and I'm just getting more and more mad." So I said, how do you know if God hears you and if he cares? You open the Bible and this book is his word and his voice to you. So we're going to do that together right now. Since that conversation, he's been in a better mood. I've been in a better mood. I pray it will shift for you, too.
The ways it has shifted is not how you would expect. Nothing as been solved, and it hasn't been a big dramatic moment. This morning I got a text from a friend and she picked up my favorite tea to bring to me. It was no big deal on any given day, but today I almost cried that she was bringing me that tea. I wiped down my counters the other day, and I noticed these flowers I bought at target the other day, and I had some music playing in the background, and this verse I'm going to talk about today came to mind.
1st Thessalonians 4 is not going to sound like it's about delight, but it is. Paul is writing to the Thessalonians and he's encouraging them by telling them they're doing a good job at loving each other. Keep doing that. Keep obeying God. Don't give up. For some reason they were discouraged, and Paul is speaking to them and encouraging them. Then he says, " I urge you brothers to do this more and more, to love each other more and more and to aspire to live quietly, to mind your own affairs." Another version says, "to mind your own business and to work with your hands as we instructed you so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one." So what he's saying is as we are making dinner, doing our to-do lists, putting our heads down and wiping our counters, feeding our families, talking walks, that this is the work of the Kingdom.
I know this is hard to believe because we are such doers. We are such achievers. We want to accomplish things and this is not a moment where we get to experience that satisfaction. Most days we don't feel like we're accomplishing much. But what God wants more than your accomplishment is he wants a relationship with you. He wants to delight over you. I teared up while I was wiping the counters because I realized how blessed I am, how much God loves me, and how carefully he is caring for me in the most random and mundane moments. He is with me and he is meeting with me. That is our delight. When we find our delight in him, it doesn't matter what circumstance we're in. It doesn't matter what fire we are facing. It does not matter what comfort we are losing. Our delight cannot be taken from us. That's the sermon I gave Cooper. I said, you want to know what happiness is? It's not putting it on any other thing on this earth. It's being with Jesus. I told Cooper to go talk to Jesus, and we pray together all the time, but that time he wanted to go to his room and pray by himself. I think it just felt so vulnerable to him to really talk to God about what was going on with him. He said, "God, I don't want to be angry anymore. I don't know how to stop. Will you help me?" He prayed the most vulnerable, real prayer and in that moment I'm telling you, his whole demeanor changed. I asked him what he felt like God was saying back to him. Think about the scriptures and what you think he would say. He said, "I think he'd be saying he loves me a lot and that he's with me and he's going to help me."
This is a relationship with God. It's not complicated. It's as we are going about our day, even though our days feel like groundhog day sometimes. It feels like every single day is the exact same and we're doing the same cooking and the same zooming in front of our computers. But God is with us when we put our head down and mind our business and do our work. It's pleasing to him. We don't need to do great things to matter. We have a great God that tells us we matter and we cannot lose that. That cannot be taken away from us.
This week I pray you will delight and enjoy God's delight over you. Delight in the mundane things we get to do with our lives. This moment in time is not an accident. He knew and he has a plan for it and we'll miss it if we look for something more important to do with our lives. Delight is a funny thing to talk about in the midst of a lot of suffering.