Are You God's Delight?? / Mrs Marcella Smith

 

 

Mrs Marcella Smith

Pastor's Wife

Sandy Valley Baptist Temple

Magnolia, OH

 

 

Are you God’s Delight? Are you delightful to God? Are you delightful to God daily?

Proverbs 8:30 …and I was daily his delight… 
Yes, I understand that this verse is talking about wisdom, but don’t you think that if wisdom can daily delight Him, we can too? God made us for His pleasure.

Delight is defined as:  enjoyment, pleasure, to incline to, to be pleased with, desire, favor

So are you delightful or are you…
Upset because you HAVE to serve God? You know…working in the nursery, visiting those bus routes, soulwinning in the middle of your Saturday, teaching SS every week, cleaning up the church (no one else seems to want to), making food for the funeral meals or shut ins… and the list could go on for some of you, I’m sure.

Are you delightful or are you…
 Angry because of some hurt in your life?  Things like broken relationships, a long -term illness, the death of a loved one, people who are always offending you or getting offended by every little thing you say…these things hurt us to be sure, but being angry is not the answer.

Are you delightful or are you…
 Too busy complaining about your life or life in general? You seem to never have as much money as so and so, your job is such a pain (they should really give you a huge raise for all you have to put up with), your bills are so unfair (your neighbors bills are so much less and they have a bigger house), your kids drive you crazy and just wont be well-behaved like your friends kids…

To be a delight… We must THINK and REMEMBER God’s blessing in our lives! This will enable us to: be grateful for what we do have, love and enjoy serving our Jesus, get over life’s many hurts, deal with sickness, and serve joyfully.

How can we accomplish this? 
1. Read about God’s blessing in the past in your Bible. Several chapters talk about how God took care of the Israelites many times over. (PSALM 107) That would be a good place to start.
2. Realize that God STILL blesses today! Think about blessings and look for them in other’s lives. (Sometimes it is easier to see how others are being blessed)
3. Revisit how God has blessed YOU in the past. I have so many examples of this, but one that has been recent is a funeral meal at our church. It was for folks we didn’t even know and had no idea how many folks to expect. So our church folks prepared in abundance…guess who received the delicious, abundant leftovers? We did! It certainly helped with my grocery bill. We ate for days. I want my children to notice God’s many blessings so I usually use sarcasm to make it funny… as in, when God’s blessing is so very obvious and we are lavishly spoiled, I turn to my kids and say “Oh my, It’s so haaaaard to serve Jesus. We are just suffering sooooooo much. (in the whiniest voice I can muster) They giggle and agree…God is so very good to us.  We have no reason to complain. Sure we put in long hours, (my kids included) do many things above and beyond, stay up late, etc. However, God’s goodness is so apparent that we could never say “we are suffering for Jesus”. There would be no truth to that. 

Psalms 107: 8,15,21,31 Four verses in the Bible that say exactly the same thing; “Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men!” 
God wants praise, enough to tell us in the exact same words 4x. God gets delight through our praise. Are you delightful to God? Do you praise Him daily?

Proverbs 10:22 “The blessing of the Lord, it maketh rich, and he addeth no sorrow with it.”

My practical nature came to the rescue to help me with this problem of not praising God or being delightful to Him.

A BLESSING BOOK- a journal of sorts that you jot your blessings and answered prayers down in.  I choose to head the top of the blank, lined paper by each month. Then I simply use the lines to record God’s goodness. I usually put the item received and who gave it to us. For baptisms and salvations I write the person’s name and the date.  I read through this book when I am feeling down. It reminds me of God’s love and care for me.

Look for God’s blessings in the lives of those in the Bible so you can follow that principle and keep getting blessed, and then when He does bless, don’t forget to write it down.

Look for blessings in your daily life. You have to train yourself to think this way. We do not naturally see the good around us.

Ladies, we do not need to be sad, broken, depressed Christians. Look at how God has blessed and is blessing and you cannot help but smile. Sometimes we smile through our tears, but we can smile none the less.  We can serve Jesus and have true joy. 

If you are going through a difficult time in the ministry, step back and take time to get your joy back. Ask God for it. I have been there and never wish to go back. I don’t want to dread church. I don’t want to hate serving Jesus. I don’t want my children to run from the ministry. So, I have a blessing book and that helps me to focus on all the good that I do have!!!  I can smile now while serving, because I have true joy!!! I love being a Preacher’s wife. I don’t want to be anything else. As I sit at the piano and start the prelude music, I can’t help but hold back tears of joy because of the sweet peace and joy that comes from knowing that I am doing exactly what God wants me to do.

We don’t HAVE to serve Jesus, We GET to serve Jesus!!! 
(Oh, and it’s sooooo hard. Wink-wink)