“Delight yourself in the Lord; and He will give you the desires of your heart.”   Psalm 37:4  NASB

Delight - This word (‘anag) is used for a garment that is delicate or luxurious.  Here it means to feel great favor toward something.  But notice carefully the object of our delight.  It is not His forgiveness.  It is not His rescue.  It is not His blessings or promises.  This verse makes it clear that we do not delight in something God has done for us.  We are delighted in His person – in who He is.  Just like a fine piece of silk, the delight is not because of what can be done with the cloth, but because the cloth itself is so marvelous. The subject is desirable because it is attractive in and of itself.

This verse expresses great emotional joy about the subject.  The word is used to describe pampering (Deuteronomy 28:56) and joyful merriment (Isaiah 58:14).  Metaphorically, it describes the delight and joy over a restored Jerusalem (Isaiah 66:11).  But the psalmist points us toward God Himself.  Yeshua called such delight a priceless treasure in a field.  Once discovered, a man would do anything to obtain that field and make the treasure his own.

The word picture (from Ayin-Nun-Gimel) reveals why delight in God is the summum bonum of Mankind.  The pictograph is “experience life lifted up.”  God is the God of life.  To experience Him is to experience Life itself in all of its splendor and majesty.

We often feel as though the lives we lead are somber, guilt ridden, even tedious.  When we have turned away from the thrill seeking of our old habits, the world sometimes seems drab and lifeless.  But life in Yeshua is a replacement process.  In it we will find that God becomes a delight to us, that we can enjoy His company and His purposes, that our lives are lighter because we have trusted Him.  A most amazing transformation occurs when we begin to seek a relationship with God.  Our lives progress toward fulfillment.  Those secret spaces are no longer empty.  We experience the desires of our reborn hearts as real experiences of joy.  The time will come when we find ourselves happy just to belong to Him.  We will know contentment.  That is a promise we can count on.

In the frenzy of activity we call life, I wonder if we wouldn’t experience more of what we seek if we simply delighted in Him, if we set aside all the distractions and diversions, all the other self-sufficient pleasures built on our expectations and intentions, and let ourselves bask in being with Him.  But, of course, that is the point of Shabbat, isn’t it.  To remind us that Life and YHWH are synonymous and contemporaneously experienced.  Is it your delight to just be alive?

Topical Index:  delight, ‘anag, Shabbat, Psalm 37:4