Delight

Have you ever been blindsided? I don't mean the kind of blindsided that happens when you are out driving and you get plowed into by a driver that wasn't paying attention. I mean the kind of blindsided that happens when you are at a table with a bunch of friends and pretty soon the topic of conversation turns to something you had not planned on talking about, and now a question has been asked and everyone turns to you to see how you will answer it.

I guess that it is pretty obvious that this is what happened to me recently. The question was pretty simple. Trent, how will I know the person that God has called to be my mate? My answer was basically that there is a large assumption there that God even wants you to have a mate. I am not sure how that response was received. I hope that it was taken in the manner that I meant it: with love.

The more I study scripture and the more that I try to get my mind around the person that Jesus is, the more I realize that our questions are not that difficult to answer. They are just difficult to answer to our liking. I don't know how many times I have asked God a simple question in my "little plastic telescope time" and then I find that the answer is simply not what I wanted to hear. Of course, instead of realizing that my desire is out of line with my "Lord," I rephrase the question. Surely, my Lord wants me to have what I want. Surely, my Lord will give me my desires. Surely, he wants me to have a new camera, phone, house, car, boyfriend, diagnosis, spouse, job, church, pastor, guitar... Surely he will give me the desires of my heart. I mean, doesn't it say that in scripture?

Yeah, well, sort of. It says that if I delight myself in Him I will get the desires of my heart. But Lord don't you know how much that new job would delight me? Don't you know how much it would delight me to know that I would have a new job or to cruise to work in a new car. I am sure that the Lord does know how much that would delight me and I am afraid that it makes him sad.

Seriously, what does it mean to delight myself in Him and His ways? Why doesn't it delight me to share a meal with a hungry person or to be a friend to a lonely person? I don't know. I do know that God is patient with me though, and his love for me does not depend on me returning it to Him. For that I am grateful. I am grateful that He delights more in me than I do in Him.