I was Created to Delight in a God Who Delights in Me!!

What a refreshing couple of days I had this weekend. I went with Karen (Mace's mom) to the Living Proof Live Simulcast at their church here in Lexington and am so, so grateful for the opportunity to attend. What powerful and challenging words she delivered! I took a ridiculous amount of notes, and, if I was a faster writer, would have had so many more! Beth is such an effective communicator and artful speaker. Her words paint beautiful pictures, yet she refrains from sugar-coating anything. She brings up some thick stuff, that can take a while to digest. It definitely wasn't a "spiritual high" kind of event that has a big let-down afterward. I feel "greatly encouraged in my faith," re-focused, reinforced, and refreshed.

For my own sake and because it's just too good to keep to myself, I wanted to share some points (okay, really it's most of my notes!) that The Lord really spoke to me through and that I want to continue to remind myself of in the future.

The scripture we focused on during our 3 sessions is Psalm 37:4

"Delight yourself in the Lord;
and He will give you the desires
of your heart."

7 Things Imperative to Remember about Delighting Yourself in The Lord:

1) NOTHING dictates our lives like our desires.

*At the end of the day, when all is said and done,
people do what they WANT to do!!

*At the heart of your desires, you just want to feel alive,
to be loved unconditionally
*It is crucial that we lay our desires before the Lord.

*We are dictated by our "want to"

*Every carnal craving has an untended to, legitimate desire at its core
*Pray for God to protect us from EVERYTHING but His Glory
*Ps. 38:9 - ALL my sighing is heard by God!!
*All my longings are laying before God

*A legitimate heart's desire necessitates a wait/is sustained
over a long period of time.
*We can get so frustrated with waiting, that we miss what it takes to get it.
*Are you willing to do what it takes to get the gift of God that you want?
DON'T give up!

2) Beneath the desires of our hearts is the heart of our desires

*The heart of our desires is the
"pulse beneath our passions"
*Your time is strategic - HE sees the end from
the beginning!
*Some of the things we lack will be used
by God to fulfill our destiny, and for His glory
*In the lack, something is to be deliberated, cultivated,
and delivered at the harvest
*He esteems my longings!

3) Delighting in God adapts our desires into inevitabilities.

*Our life is to be one of reciprocal delight of God and man
*The delight of man always has a dimension of wonder to it
*God is to become the greatest, uncontested
desire of your heart.
*If joy is a smile, then delight is a laugh
*If you have desired something with all your
heart for years and still haven't received it,
SOMETHING. IS. UP. -
either destiny or Glory (God's) is at stake -
and we've got to continue to LOOK up!
*Pray daily, "God, grant me a heart that delights in You."
*Make yourself available to receive a heart that delights in God
*Have a sensitivity to God and to the things of God
*God is faithful through the seasons
*even this side of the Garden, His delight for us is unchanged!
*sense the activity of The Lord and delight in it
*be still before The Lord

4) NOTHING external can steal our right to delight. (This one was especially powerful for me)

*We have given people rights that they DO NOT HAVE
*There are 3 things (Ps. 37:1-9)that will marr our delight and deform our desires:
Ask yourself, what's taking a "bite" out of my delight (JAW)?
J - jealousy: desire tinged with resentment; look UNDER your jealousy

A- anger: what are you MAD about?
*Anger brings out nothing but RESENTMENT - it will NEVER work in a relationship.
*Anger fosters alienation, not intimacy
*Anger is the exact polar opposite of delight and is an equal form of overtaking disaster
*When Christ is your top priority, He IS your LIFE!
*Delight = Unrestricted and Free, Anger=CONstricting
*Anger often has an element of grief to it: Most madness has some element of sadness
W - worry: the word for "fret" used in Ps. 37 means "to eat or gnaw into"
*worry never brings about positive change
*we really are basically OUT of control

5) To make room for delight, we've got to "COMMIT" - to roll something over upon - ourselves, our ways to God's shoulders.

*we need to come out of our indecision - stop doubting, TODAY is the day to commit!
*Micah7:8 - Though I have fallen, I WILL rise!
*You were redeemed by a God who I delights to show you mercy -
will you let Him?
*What if you chose, today, to BELIEVE you are FORGIVEN from __?!
*Stop affirming your own UNforgiven-ness
*He will NOT let His word return void
*Commit your "way" - journey, road, course of life, passage
*When we exchange our hearts' desires for our cravings, addiction becomes our identity

6) NOTHING is passive about patiently waiting for desire to turn into delight.

*we desire it because we do not have it

*there is nothing passive about a wait!
*we can be just about to give up on a prayer when some kind of breakthrough happens
*Do NOT let the enemy convince you that you've got a hopeless cause
*There are times when God goes after the heart of our desires before the desires of our heart because glory and/or destiny is at stake.
*You never make a petition He does not hear!!
*We have to get out of the way
*Ps.37:7 - Be still means to STOP, hold your peace, be SILENT
*Avoid being all talk and no hear - He already knows what we want!
*Ps. 37:7 - Wait patiently, here, means "to twist or whirl; to dance; writhe in pain, bring forth, to be in pain"
*Know when to stop it and shut up, but somehow get out of our system the anxiety produced by our wait - - Turn it into PRAISE! It gives us something to DO with it!
*In the middle of the pain, I know God's going to do something with it.
*"Success" doesn't necessarily bring us where He wants us to be
*We have been "entrusted" with a difficult time - Maybe He meant it for GOOD (Gen.50:20)!
*God cannot use out of us our pride and arrogance

7) Till faith becomes sight, trust GOD, and DO GOOD.

*faith WILL become sight - the only thing that matters on THAT day is that I trusted Him
*It says do GOOD, not "do the right thing"
*it's not about being right or being proven right
*What good can I do? - Rom. 12:21
*Don't just sit around and watch the wrong of the world, saying how it can be made right

*Don't just be right, do somebody some GOOD.
*God will deal with evil - Ps.37:13 - He laughs at wickedness
*Ps. 36:8 - Look up - - There IS a river
*Dwell in the land - -

What land has God given you? DWELL in it! Feed off of HIS faithfulness.