On Delight

Seeking it, finding it, practicing it

We were a couple hours from home—on our second full day of driving at the end of December—when the dread started to hit: the fear of re-entry.

We had been away for 10 days (it really was lovely overall!) and had spent half of them in the car, thinking of what we’d do when we got out of it. Now, we were coming home barely a day before the dawn of a Shiny New Year.

I had scrolled past photos of friends using this “buffer” week between Christmas and New Year’s to organize their homes and “get ahead.” I knew I was still hoping, deep down, to do all those things in a comically small fraction of the time. I flipped open my journal, probably at first to try to work out how this would all happen.

But, as I jotted down my hopes and began to despair of achieving them, the journaling turned into a prayer.

“Lord, help me ride out these anxieties as they rise in me. The grocery lists and goals and unpacking and laundry, let it all unfold under the overwhelming sense of your presence and provision. Your delight.”

I stopped after writing that word and circled it. Yes, I thought, delight.

I thought of how heavy and burdensome my to-do list was feeling before I even began to tackle it. And I thought, in delightful contrast, of the God who holds all things together.

His cohesion of all things is not frantic. He is not like the mouse Gus-Gus in the movie Cinderella, trying to heap one more kernel of corn onto his pile than he can handle. No, under God’s provision, creatures like these “neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns,” and yet He feeds them. “Are you not of more value than they?” Jesus asks us in Matthew 6:26.

Sitting in the passenger seat, I looked up the word “delight” in my Blue Letter Bible app. As I began to meditate on this word, to think on what God says brings delight, my list of anxieties faded into the background. I did not realize it at the time, but this pattern has held time and again: Despairing of my ability to get everything done prepared me to delight in God’s provision. Ultimately, regardless of what does or does not “get done,” I can be reminded of and rest in the completed work of Christ right now. I went on, in that journal entry, to pray my way through the end of a year and into a new one:

“Let us carry and convey your delight, even when ours falters. Let it course through us this year, as we parent, as we love each other, as we work and serve. Lift our gaze beyond the right now to the higher vision, the Second Coming, the well-done-good-and-faithful-one that is ours in Christ alone. Let that be the anthem sung over us and hummed within us this year.”

Below that I wrote something I don’t usually do, certainly not every year. But the timing had me feeling hopeful. “Word of the Year 2023: Delight.”

That Sunday at church in a sermon on worship, my pastor asked the question, “What or who delights you? Energizes you? Leaves you longing for more?”

I thought of the Sunday Sabbath we’ve been keeping for more than a year now, of how the afternoons that unfold after church have become a day for setting aside duty and doing, in fact, what delights. I realize now it’s been training me in delight, in my need for it, in the way a little bit leaves me longing for more. On Sundays, we let dishes pile up in the sink and do board games instead. (If you think, “I could never do that,” know that I couldn’t either—until I did.) The work will always be there. There are still five mouths to feed, bodies to clothe, multiple jobs to tend. But pushing pause reminds us we are not God, and the one who is is generous and good. (More on the role of delight in the Sabbath on this podcast episode.)

This holiday, my wish lists were filled with things for Sundays: puzzles and books, games and cross-stitching supplies. I have learned that I don’t do well with “nothing.” If I am idle, my default is productivity. So, now, I plan for delight.

The Sunday after our re-entry—after I’d gotten some but not all of the things done—we got out one of my gifts, a 1,000-piece puzzle of watercolor pansies by Helen Dealtry. We completely underestimated how long it would take to complete or how not-interested our youngest two would be. Part of me saw the pieces strewn about the coffee table all week as needless clutter and mess, the sort that can make my brain fry when I’m in my “get stuff done” mode. But part of me was learning to see it as delight spreading across the corners of our week. I could barely walk by without getting drawn in.

In the evenings, my husband and I would hover over it, pecking pieces into place and yelling, “Yes!” until our backs ached and bed beckoned. I realize this sounds like the Olympics for old people, but I don’t care. It was not remotely productive—a puzzle will only be disassembled once completed! It was not mind-numbingly distracting, either, but rather tricky and engaging. And it was sheer delight.

I’m a little embarrassed to say that delight does not come easily to me. I tend to appreciate finished product over process, and that makes it harder to delight in anything that takes a good long while, to include puzzles, cross-stitching and book writing. But I’m learning. My delight muscles feel atrophied, but it is good to work them again, to enter into an emotion that comes so easily to my children, that came more easily to a younger me.

Speaking of book writing, I am entering the final stretch. I have written nine chapters, and need to write three more by the end of March. I really do trust that the God who has carried me so effortlessly (on His part) through this process will continue to do so. What I find myself asking Him for now is this: Help me delight in it. Right here, before it’s done, while it’s mid-process, grant me delight.

“Do not fear, little flock, for your Father took delight to give you the kingdom.” — Luke 12:32, Berean Literal Bible.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on delight. What stirs it in you? How do you practice it? And why? I’ve been studying the word across Scripture recently and may turn some of that into a second post on the subject. To pique your interest, look up the first use of the word delight in the Bible. It’s in Gen. 3:6…