Delighting in God During the Coronavirus
Do you find yourself looking at the world around you and asking, “Is this how things are supposed to be?” If you have, you are in good biblical company. King David, who defeated Goliath and wrote many of the Psalms in the Bible, wondered that very same thing. He wondered why it was that evil seemed to prosper and flourish.
God gives us two helpful responses in times like these in Psalm 37:
Wait on Him and find your delight in Him.
Those who know me well know that I am not a particularly patient person. I want issues resolved yesterday! It can feel impractical to “do good and wait patiently for the LORD” (verses 3 and 7). So, how do we wait on and believe in a God that we can’t even see?
While not being able to see God is a stumbling block that prohibits many people from believing in Him, we are presently seeing that the vast majority of people in the world believe in things we cannot see. The entire world now believes in a powerful, life-threatening virus that they cannot see!
Psalm 37:4 gives us this command: “Delight yourself in the LORD and He will give you the desires of your heart.” When you and I focus on God and delight in Him (and not our circumstances), God begins to change our perspective on those very circumstances.
What does it mean to “delight” in God? Part of what it means is to admire Him for who He is and who He claims to be. Author and atheist Ayn Rand said: “Admiration is the rarest form of pleasures.” To delight in God is to see Him as beautiful, powerful, good, and glorious. To delight in God means to see Him as “for you.” Many people have an idea that God is either “distant” or “out to get them.” That could not be further from the biblical truth. God proved that He is for you by sending His own son to die on a cross to bear your sin, guilt, shame, and thereby offering you new, eternal, and abundant life if you put your faith in Jesus. So, delighting in God begins with knowing that He has your best interests and ultimate needs in mind. You and I can also delight in God by enjoying His good gifts such as family, health, abilities, jobs, nature, food, and drink.
My son just turned 5 and I was recently thinking about what it looks like for me to delight in him. It has meant spending time with him—wrestling, playing catch, hiking, talking with God, praising Him, and finding new and creative ways to pick on mommy! As we spend time together, my interests become his and his become mine. James Merrit puts it like this: “When you want what God wants, God will always give you more than you want.”
While our circumstances may change, we have a God who never does.
Those who put their faith in God can be assured of the truth in Psalm 37:9, “Those who are evil will be destroyed, but those who hope in the LORD will inherit the land.” The pain and pleasure of this life are so short compared to eternity. Let’s “fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Cor 4:18).
