What does it mean to enjoy?  What does it mean to delight?  In a world so blackened by hate and apathy and violence, is it selfish or indulgent to say God wants us to enjoy?  Is it wrong or sinful to say God wants us to delight?

But in what does God desire us to delight?  Does he desire us to delight in worldly pleasures and pursuits, or does he simply desire us to delight in him?  His presence is woven all throughout our humanity and if we take a step back, if we are open, we get to see it.  We get to enjoy it.

Maybe it’s the cool mountain air.  Maybe it’s the way the critters sound at night.  Maybe it’s the way the sun shines in through a window, or the way your coffee tastes first thing in the morning.  Maybe it’s the people you’re with, the way they are so exquisite and complex.

I’ve found that my biggest hindrance to delight is expectation.  What I feel God expects of me, what I expect of others, and more harshly, what I expect of myself.

Do I delight in who I am or do I strain to be what I think I’m not?

I ponder today–the unmerited grace of God cultivates breathing room for delight.

Because here I am not worried if I am too fat, too loud, too unapproachable.  Here I am not worried if I am doing all the right things, if I’m pleasing God.  Here I rest in who he has designed me to be and that rest begets delight.

Here I am not worried about what they look like or sound like or talk like, here I am not worried that their stories are much different from mine.  Here I worry not that they don’t see the world the way I do; here I am in awe of the way they see it.  Here I am not preoccupied with wondering if they’re good enough or if they love God enough.  Here I get to see the unfolding story of their essence and I smile at it.  Beaming from the inside out because they are wonderful and incredible and there is no expectation.  They are released from my petty expectations of what a human should be and they are freed from the limiting beliefs of what a Christian should do.  They are free, I am free, and I am delighted.

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.  And in freedom we delight.

I get to enjoy my Jesus in all things because I know that in all things, my Jesus enjoys me. 

Maybe this is a prayer of delight, or maybe it is a prayer of release.  Perhaps it is both.

Lord, here is my prayer of delight. 

Today and every day, I walk freely in the grace you have given me.  I am free to be who you have created me to be, and I am free to celebrate who you have created them to be.  

I am not worried about being liked, I am not worried.  I am too full of reverent awe of you and your creation that there is simply no room to harbor anything else.  Inside me blooms a great delight for who you are and what you’ve created, and it pushes all jealously and insecurity to the edges of me.  The more I soak in your goodness, the more I am saturated, and this petty inadequacy has no choice but to flee.

And Lord for them.  For the unwinding pages of them.  For the endless hues of them.  I pray delight.  I pray release.  I pray freedom and grace and ease.  May they too see what I see, see what you see.  May they recognize that they are fully known and fully loved in every single moment of their lives whether they’re “getting it” or not.  I pray they come to believe in the story you’re crafting in them and around them, and may the rest in the beauty of who they are. 

My sweet Jesus.  You are my greatest delight.