Christmas Pleasure: Day 11

“then you will take delight in the LORD” Isaiah 58:14

Delight – What is more rewarding than seeing the face of a small child opening a brightly wrapped gift?  The excitement, the joy, the anticipation and the sheer delight portrayed in that countenance is more thrilling than all rest of the festivities.  Why?  What makes the delight of children so special, so different than our own reactions to gifts?  Could it be that for children too young to have expectations, the experience is so new, so fresh that it releases the pure joy of living?  Could it be that when we were too young to know better, the world was still alive with lovely treasures?  And what happened to us?  Over the years we replaced exuberant thankfulness with expected reciprocity.  We numbed ourselves to life’s delight.  We painted gray where the rainbow used to fall.

God wants to restore life to its delightful, childlike amazement.  But He knows a secret even more powerful than the one that brings a smile to the face of a child at Christmas.  Delight at any age is found only one place.  In Him.  No substitutes will long remain outside the gray painted arms of expectation and quid-pro-quo.  All that we can collect, all that we can share will eventually amount to nothing more than one more time around the block.  Only God can surprise every day anew.  Until I find my delight in the Lord, I will forever hunt for the end of the rainbow.

Christmas is upon us.  Tomorrow is the celebration of the birth of the King.  The angels rejoiced, delighted with God’s surprising, spectacular restoration.  The shepherds worshipped.  The heavens shouted out His glory.  Today we are asked to consider the place of delight in our lives.  Will Christmas arrive with an overflowing thanksgiving from within, with an unquenchable delight in our God?  Will we be once more thrilled to the depths of our souls with His majesty, His compassion, His long-suffering mercy?  Will we fall to our knees in eternal gratitude with faces radiant from His presence?

Christmas.  We can have the world’s substitute.  Presents, tinsel, football, tension, conflict, pretense, counting, comparison.  Or we can have God’s surprise.  Rejoicing.  Thankfulness.  Submission.  Humility.  Delight.  Which will you find tomorrow?  Probably the same one that you hold today.