God Delights in Us
Read: Zephaniah 3:9-20 The LORD your God . . . will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing. (v. 17) Our earliest experiences have a profound effect on how we view ourselves and on how we think God and others see us. We may grow up […]
Creation Sings God’s Praise
Read: Psalm 19:1-14 The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. (v. 1) C. S. Lewis called Psalm 19 “the greatest poem in the Psalter and one of the greatest lyrics in the world,” and I can see why. In only 14 verses, the psalmist captures the miraculous nature of […]
God Delights in Creation
Read: Genesis 1:14-31 And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. (v. 31) My grandma made the best egg noodles. Once, when I made them on my own and they turned out like hers, I could feel the delight well up in me with every bite. Creation and delight go […]
What Is Delight?
Read: Ephesians 3:7-21 That you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth. (vv. 17-18) Sometime between 1490 and 1510, Hieronymus Bosch painted a three-panel work he titled “The Garden of Earthly Delights.” Scholars debate the meaning of this […]
New Clothes and Permanent Ink
Read: Revelation 3:1-6 The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments, and I will never blot his name out of the book of life. (v. 5) I don’t really like the word overcomer, the word my preferred translation (AMP) uses for this verse. To me, it suggests behavior I practiced for the first […]
The “Secret”
Read: Philippians 4:10-20 I can do all things through him who strengthens me. (v. 13) There are always people who want to know the secrets of success, and for those peddling the latest and greatest methods, people will jump through hoops of fire to achieve it (and spend a lot of money). There are diet and […]
Interwoven
Read: Colossians 1:15-23 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. (v. 17) In the final, climactic words of Scripture, a resurrected Jesus testified, “I am . . . the beginning and the end” (Rev. 22:13). As old as the story of God, Jesus existed before history, and will be present after the end of […]
Builder and Wrecking Ball
Read: Jeremiah 23:23-29 Is not my word like fire, declares the LORD, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces? (v. 29) In her 2003 song “Wrecking Ball,” Jill Phillips wrote a jarringly honest lyric I’ve often appreciated: “Triumph and tragedy, only God can be / Both the builder and the wrecking ball.” Like […]
The Ultra-Wide-Angle View
Read: Psalm 34 The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear him, and delivers them. (v. 7) There’s the simple zoom lens, then there’s the ultra-wide-angle lens. Spiritually speaking, to God belongs the ultra-wide-angle. While we often pull out the simple zoom, viewing what we fear at larger-than-life proportions, God sees the whole picture, […]