Delight: An Antidote to Hurry, Perfectionism, and Numbing
Opening Thoughts
Have you ever been to the “Happiest Place on Earth?” Yes, I’m referring to Disneyland. For those of you on the East Coast, Disneyworld counts here, as well. Anyways, for some this phrase to describe the magical experience of Disney is accurate in providing much happiness. For others, this phrase is a great thought, but mainly their experience is filled with lots of impatient people, crying children (and parents), and angry dads who are tired of waiting in line and paying $47.95 for a corn dog.
Growing up in Southern California, I’d make an annual visit or two to Disneyland, and I noticed a common trend of having to get on every ride, eat all the best treats, and then be back home before Sunday Night Football started. However, the more we added the pressure of a perfect Disney visit, the more we found ourselves not enjoying the visit altogether. The more we rushed to get more front of the line passes, the more we missed celebrating and having fun on the previous ride. The more we ran ahead to ensure the “proper” procedure of Disney happiness, the more we numbed to the experience as a whole.
In short, I’ve learned there is a vast difference between waiting in frustration to get something done versus waiting presently and enjoying the moment. I’ve been on both sides of that coin and I’ve discovered whether I’m waiting in line for a ride or waiting in life for the next move there’s a cure to the pressures of accomplishment, striving, and hurry.
This antidote is called delight.
Delight makes the difference between an angry dad at Disneyland and experiencing the happiest place on earth no matter where you are standing. Delight splits the gap between tears because Mickey went on a break right before you got to meet him and recognizing that your Best Friend is with you always. Delight marks our hearts to know that our grumbling in impatience gets us nowhere fast, but speaking truthfully, lovingly, graciously, and joyfully promotes an awareness of the gift of the present moment. Delight overcomes the temptation to produce our way forward in life and calls us to the simple, slow, and present process of abiding with God and those around us. Delight defeats the competition and comparision of who did more with the beautiful reality of a worry-free, trust-filled existence in connection with the Holy Spirit.
That all sounds like the happiest place on earth. But the million dollar question is: what is delight?
What is Delight?
Delight is taking great or exquisite pleasure in something or someone. The Scriptures point to this reality in God’s delight over His creation and His decree over every created thing as “good (Gen. 1:31).” The Scriptures also point out to this immense pleasure that God takes in His creation and people even when they are in sin. Zephaniah prophesies of God’s joyful song over His exiled people (Zeph. 3:17). Isaiah tells of God’s treatment of His people like a precious jewel in His hand, and even goes as far as saying that His people would be called, “My delight is in her (Is. 62:3-5).”
In short, God takes immense joy in and over His creation. This is wonderful news, but it only gets better. God didn’t just create us to know about this delight, but to participate in this joy with Him.
The Word of God points out many places in which this pleasure is mutual, invitational, and abiding. The Great Exchange of Isaiah 61 revels in the worship of God by declaring a delight in the Lord for the salvation He offers (Is. 61:10). Paul’s call to the churches in Philippi and Thessaloniki is for them to rejoice in the Lord always (Phil. 4:4; 1 Thess. 5:16-18). The Psalmist declares that in God’s Presence there is fullness of joy and pleasure forevermore (Ps. 16:11). There’s also the joy of knowing that Jesus tells us that He will abide in us as we abide in Him (Jn. 15).
The Good News gets GOODER. God delights in us and we, by His grace, are empowered to delight in Him. God takes exquisite pleasure in us and we can do the same in abiding relationship with Him. And this changes everything. Our everyday, waking moment can be filled with the overflowing, eternally abundant, everlasting joy of our Creator God who sings and dances over us with delight, and calls us to dance and sing with Him forevermore.
I could call it a wrap with that last sentence, yet the delight of the Lord never stops and continues to expand our understanding and participation in God’s exquisite pleasure over us. So, if we know what delight is and that we’re invited to delight in God as He delights in us, then how do we do this?
How Do We Delight?
In Matthew 3, Jesus is baptized in the Jordan river by John the Baptist. During His baptism, the heavens open, the Spirit of God descends on Him in the form of a dove, and a voice—the Father’s voice—comes from heaven declaring, “This is My Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased (Mt. 3:17).” At this point in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus has done two things: be born and be baptized. Mary did the work on labor and delivery, and John did the work on dunking the Messiah. In all honesty, there’s nothing to note of Jesus’ accomplishments in this text other than He is the Beloved Son of Father God and the Holy Spirit has landed on Him in the form of a dove. He is delighted in simply because He is.
In other words, delight happens by simply admiring, engaging with, and declaring pleasure over the one that we love. This isn’t based on merit. This isn’t based on accomplishments. This isn’t based on social terms or expectations. This is purely based on the fact that we are connected to them and experience joy by being around them, speaking to them and listening to them. Delight happens when we recognize the Belovedness of another and we participate in the pleasure of that love together.
As a father, I’ve been learning about this delight, and it’s turning my world upside down. I’ve always wanted to hear the Father speak over me what He spoke over Jesus, yet I’ve never heard His audible voice say it. I’ve read it, heard it preached, and definitely felt it, but not yet experienced it through an open heaven, resounding declaration moment. However, when my wife and I went to one of our first appointments for our baby, Jacen, we heard his heartbeat over the fetal Doppler. At the instant that I heard his little heart beating, I couldn’t help but declare this delightful cry. I spoke out loud through tears rolling down my face, “This is my Beloved son and I’m so proud of him.” My son had done nothing to earn this, but it was the first thing that flooded from my heart and lips when I heard him.
Parenting has also taught me that delight is a slow action. My productivity these days is way down, but the delight of my Father hasn’t changed. I’ve experienced this delight as I’ve been around my son. Whether he smiles or not, whether I have to change him or not, whether he’s fussy or calm, I’ve found that delighting in my boy is being present, looking into his eyes, listening to his babbling, and staying engaged and locked in no matter the distraction.
Delight looks the same in our lives. It’s not simply taking pleasure in something or someone because of how good they make us look, how we can take advantage of them, or how they will help us get ahead. It’s not experiencing joy only because we understand another or feel accomplished with them. Delight is the joyful and relational connection of sharing deep love with another purely because we share a common ground: our Father delights in us and loves us 100%, 100% of the time.
I don’t know about you, but just typing that last sentence lifted a ton of pressure off my shoulders and sparked a desire in me to walk in the cool of the garden with my Creator and to invite others to do the same.
Simply put, we delight by receiving God’s love and joy over us, and expressing this joy back to God and those around us.
I guess I write all of this to say that delight is our antidote to the temptation of our day and I believe the Lord is calling us to understand, to participate, and to declare this delight with our lives. Here are some practical steps to overcome the things that are pressing on us in life.
Delight vs. Hurry
Psalm 37:4 states, “Take delight in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.” Most people know this Psalm, but I wonder if we know the extent to which this hymn of praise delivers a profound and hopeful song for our soul. David is writing about not fretting about those who are around us and trusting in the Lord in the waiting of life. I love this because our action is simple: take delight in the Lord. The promise is that He will give us the desires of our hearts, but I wonder if we could take a step back real quick?
The call is to delight in the Lord, but not as a way to get whatever we want, as if God is some slot-machine-in-the-sky. Rather, our call is to delight in the Lord because this is the desire of our hearts.
The hurry of our culture and day tells us that we must rush ahead, yet the delight of the Lord is content in simply being with us. In fact, a word study of “hurry, rushing, quick” reveals that God is slow in most of His ways. However, He is quick to do a few things including saving, sending out, and freeing. The hurry and rushing we see in Scripture, and I would propose in our time, is one that destroys and distracts from delight. The pace of God is the slow speed of joyfully taking pleasure in His creation. He quickly offers redemption to us to lay aside the hyper motion of hurry for the better movement of delight.
Next time you are in a rush—and there are things to rush to do (preach the Gospel, Mt. 28:7; listen, Jms 1:19; settle matters, Mt. 5:25; resolve debts, Lk.16:6; etc.)—let’s remember the greater invitation to delight in God as He delights in us. Let’s be reminded that Jesus was called Emmanuel (God with us) before anything else (Mt. 1:18-25). This all means that as we abide in Christ and He remains in us, it might slow us down. However, there’s nothing more “productive” than taking joy in the Lord, and joining in His song and dance over His creation.
Delight vs. Perfectionism
If you read the stories about Jesus’ baptism or my son above and still thought to yourself, “I need to earn my Father’s love,” this section is for you. There is nothing you can do to earn more or less of God’s love. He proved this by demonstrating His love for us even while we were in sin (Rms. 5:8). He showed this in giving His Son for none to perish or be condemned, but for all to be saved (Jn. 3:16-17). He continues to reveal this in desiring and extending this salvation for every person through the gracious sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus (2 Pet. 3:8-9).
Beloved, our call is not to perform our way into the Kingdom but find joy by resting in the finished work of our Savior and abiding in His Presence as He abides in us. I don’t know about you but the more I strive, the more I miss God’s Presence and Promise. The more I try to be perfect, the less I am aware of how God’s grace is active in my life to strengthen where I’m weak. The more I focus on performance, the less I focus on being present and God’s Presence. I end up thinking I can do it by myself and I miss the reality that I need God, and He delights in being with me in all things.
Jesus’ call is for His disciples to be perfect as the Father is perfect (Mt. 5:48) and for their righteousness to exceed that of the Pharisees (Mt. 5:20). The Good News is two-fold:
You can’t perform your way to that perfect or righteousness.
Jesus did and gives you the joy of participating in that perfect, holy, and righteous relationship of abiding in Him as He abides in you.
The next time you think you need to perform for your Father’s love, take delight in the fact that even before you accomplished anything, He was singing and dancing over you with songs of jubilation. You are the joy that was set before Jesus for which He endured the cross (Heb. 12:1-2). You can throw off the pressure of performance and delight in the present moment being assured that God’s delighting Presence is in you and around you.
Delight vs. Numbing
In the rushing and striving of our day, I have discovered that in order to get ahead, many of us numb ourselves altogether. We become numb to feelings, people, and God. We push away what is most important to get to some small trophy. We avoid the hard things to favor the easy things. We take in the medicine of rushing and accomplishments rather than the eternal healing balm of the joy of salvation. In doing so, we devalue the things that God values and miss the glorious invitation of His delight in us and those around us.
In Mark 15:23, Jesus is offered wine mixed with myrrh while being crucified. This was a numbing concoction that was given to those being crucified in order to prolong their humiliation. It was the Ibuprofen of the ancient world and it would have dulled the pain Jesus was experiencing. However, we read that He did not receive it. Why? He didn’t numb Himself to pain or agony because He experienced the full weight of the cross and took the full brunt of atonement for the sake of those He counted as His joy. Now, we can experience the full joy of His delight through His finished work.
Beloved, the death and resurrection of Jesus not only displays this delight, but calls us to lay aside our numbing agents to take up the joy of the Lord in its place.
The next time you are feeling tempted to numb in the midst of big feelings, remember that it is God’s joy to release big truth to you. The next time you are being persuaded to numb to accomplish or value product over people, remember that it is God’s plan to exchange our mourning for joy, ashes for beauty, and heaviness for praise. God is in the business of delight and this exquisite joy is the antidote to our numbing.
Closing Thoughts
Beloved, you may be in the midst of waiting, you may be experiencing ups and downs, or you may just be journeying through life. The Good News is that God delights in His creation and the GOODER News is that God invites us to receive this joy and participate in this pleasure. This extensive joy is an antidote to the hurry, perfectionism, and numbing of our age.
The simple reality is that our Father loves to be with us and calls us to slow to His pace of delight. Unfortunately, the things that used to cause us delight may now be boring or monotonous to us because of the plagues of our surroundings. Rushing, performance, and avoidance may have caused us to miss the joy of our Father.
G.K. Chesterton wrote it this way, “Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, "Do it again"; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, "Do it again" to the sun; and every evening, "Do it again" to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.”
Maybe the angry parents, or crying parents, at Disneyland have grown too old for the delight of childhood magic. Maybe we need to return to the childlikeness that Jesus calls His disciples to live in (Mt. 18:2-4). Maybe we need to stop rushing to get through the line and just be present in the happiest place on earth. Maybe we need to stop achieving our way to God’s love and simply recognize He loves us already and He’s in the waiting with us. Maybe we need to stop pushing away the slow process of healing rather than numbing ourselves with the “gods” of this age.
Maybe when we do these things, we will recognize that our Father delights over us and never grows tired of it. And maybe when we embrace that exuberant joy, we will live as the Beloved, walk more slowly with the Creator, and enjoy simply being with God. I would argue that all of these postures and antidotes will cause delight to sprout up all around us. Maybe the heavens will even open, the Spirit will be poured out, and the voice of the Father will resound: this is my Beloved and I delight in them.
Slow down, Beloved. Your Father is calling you to the rhythm of delight. And yes, His joyful song and dance is the truly the happiest place on earth. Amen.
