Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. — James 1:17

I had a wonderful time while away on study leave last month.  I attended a conference called “Hutchmoot” just outside Nashville.  Hutchmoot was started 15 years ago by Andrew and Pete Peterson.  Andrew describes it this way: “Hutchmoot is a three-day feast where we gather to celebrate the way the Lord makes himself known through his creation. This includes stories, music, and art of all kinds, but it’s also broader than that. He also makes himself known through Scripture, of course, and through nature, and food, and even each other—through the flawed and glorious humans you’ll be rubbing elbows with all weekend.”

Something I’ve noticed about myself is that when life gets hard and stressful, when anxiety and worry threaten to take over, it often seems as if God has stopped moving and working.  Prayers seem to be answered with silence.  The “joy of my salvation” seems like a distant memory.  The world, and my life, seem to be running on autopilot rather than guided by the hands of a loving God.  He no longer seems interested in making Himself known in any fashion, so much so that sometimes during these seasons I find myself wondering if He’s there at all.

One of the sessions I attended was led by Andrew Peterson and called “The Father of Delights.”  Riffing off James 1:17 above (“…the Father of {de}lights…”), Andrew emphasized that God is always moving and working in, through, and around us, whether we are aware of it or not.  He is constantly working to make Himself known to us and others, and seeking to delight us and fill us with wonder.  To delight in God, in His works and His creation, is to glorify God.  C.S. Lewis writes, “The Scotch catechism says that man’s chief end is ‘to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.’ But we shall then know that these are the same thing. Fully to enjoy is to glorify. In commanding us to glorify Him, God is inviting us to enjoy Him.”  The question isn’t whether God is or isn’t making himself known and giving us reason to delight in Him, it’s whether we’re paying attention and looking for the delights God is throwing our way.

Every once in a while, God does something stunning that makes us take notice.  Consider the awe we’ve all experienced the last couple of months with the displays of the Aurora Borealis here in central Virginia.  That just doesn’t happen here.  But it did, and it was wondrous and delightful.  You couldn’t look at the sky and not delight in the God that made the colors dance across the heavens.  But there are countless ways God is making Himself known to us every day.  The question is, are we taking the time to look for it?  Delight is something that we cultivate.  If you are looking to be delighted by God, then you will find delight in God.  Cultivating delight requires slowing down, being patient, and paying attention to what is going on around us.  Think about all that is happening every time you take a simple breath.  Muscles flex, lungs expand and contract, air moves in and out, blood flows, oxygen and carbon dioxide trade places, and much more.  Something we do tens of thousands of times a day is a delightful and wonderful act.  An act we take for granted with every breath.  Delighting in God takes intentionality and needs to be cultivated.

As we cultivate our delight in God, we learn to see all the different ways we are invited to delight in God.  Delight teaches us to see delight.  Have you ever noticed how many yellow cars there are?  Probably not, but now you’re going to start seeing yellow cars everywhere.  We find that for which we are looking.  As we cultivate an awareness of the myriad delightful ways God is moving and working, we will start seeing even more ways to delight in Him.  When you find or discover something delightful, take the time to savor and delight in it, and tell God about your delight.  When we express our delights, it delights the Giver of delight.  Think about the times you’ve done something special for your children or your spouse, and they delighted in it.  Their delight delights us, and it’s the same with our Father in Heaven.

In addition to giving thanks to the Father of Delights, share your delight with someone else.  Delight shared is delight enhanced and magnified.  So often, it’s easy for me to miss all the delightful things God is doing in my life.  When you delight in God and share that with me, it helps me to cultivate delight myself and encourages me to look around for all the delightful ways God is at work.  In a world that is so filled with anger and rage, stress and worry, fear and anxiety, cultivating delight in God and sharing those delights with others shines as bright as a candle unexpectedly lit in the deep darkness of night.

“Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?” — Matthew 6:28-30

Blessings,

Rev. David Garrison