You are Delightful!

You are delightful? Do you believe it?

For most of my life I didn’t. My head told me quite the opposite. People are nice to you because they are supposed to be, but really they can’t wait to escape. They view you as clingy, uninteresting, annoying. No one wants to be with you. But I found out that’s not true.

I am a delight to Jesus and He knows me better than anyone else. He knows the good, the bad, and the ugly, but still I am the sparkle in His eyes.

In the book Captivating Jon and Stasi Eldredge suggest one of the core desires of a woman’s heart is to be captivating. They say we women want to be the princess that someone is willing to fight for.

The authors of The Life Model: Living From the Heart Jesus Gave You say it this way, “In a child’s first two years, the desire to experience joy in loving relationships is the most powerful force in life. In fact, some neurologists now say that the basic human need is to be the ‘sparkle in someone’s eye.’ When you catch a glimpse of a child’s face as she runs toward an awaiting parent with arms outstretched in unrestrained joy, you can witness firsthand that incredible power that comes from being the sparkle in someone’s eye.” They go on to say if this need is not met in infancy it can be filled later on in life by authentic love relationships, including a relationship with Jesus.

Do you agree with them? I do. To be a captivating princess – the sparkle in someone’s eye – someone’s delight – for me the desire goes so deep that until recent years I could not even say it aloud. How embarrassing. For me to speak the desire might be seen as thinking it’s a possibility when it’s obviously not. But then I found out it was possible.

When I run toward Jesus He is waiting with outstretched arms in unrestrained joy.

How can I say this? How did I become convinced?

God kept leading me to this verse and others like it. “The LORD your God is with you, He is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing.” Zephaniah 3:17.

Somehow this verse didn’t penetrate my brain until I heard someone read it aloud. It sounded too good to be true, so I read it over and over after that.

“The LORD your God is with you, Karen. He is mighty to save. He will take great delight in Karen. He will quiet her with His love.”

It became one of the tools God used to absolutely convince me of His love, not just for the world, but for me personally.

Thankfully He is a patient God, because it took years for me to consistently believe. At first I would fall back into doubt after a short time. But in the same way we layer a beautiful parfait, He layered truth in me.

“Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross.” Heb. 12:2a.

One day I began to ponder what joy was set before Him. I always thought of it as the joy of being with God in heaven. But He didn’t have to leave the joy of being with His Father except for the purpose of dying for my sin. Matt. 26:53 says He could ask God to send more than twelve legions of angels to protect Him in the Garden of Gethsemane, “But then how would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen this way?”

What other joy could make Him endure the cross? The joy of knowing He was making a way for you and me to be with Him for all eternity. Which means He must really want us there! Let that soak in. He really wants us there.

Jon Courson’s Application Commentary regarding Hebrews 12.2a says it this way: “What joy? You. For the joy of seeing you in heaven, of seeing your sins forgiven, or seeing you redeemed and saved, growing, and maturing, Jesus said, ‘I’ll go through it’…Jesus set His face like flint and absorbed the pain because He loves you. You are His joy.”

I finally made a choice to believe the truth. I’ll talk more about that next week.