The God who delights in you

Early in life, you pick up “where” you are.  You get the lay of the land.  You develop an understanding of what your place is in life.  And it may be completely wrong.  Actually it probably is.  But you pick it up anyway.

It’s based on the blend of who raised you, how they were raised, and what perspective in life they handed to you.  Sure, there's some genetic stuff that overrides conditioning, but we're pretty strongly shaped by the people and groups we're around growing up.

For whatever reason, a lot of people grow up assuming some good things about themselves and some bad things about themselves.  And that's usually especially true "in church" or in religion.  There's the good news or "the gospel" of what God's done for us in Jesus and there's the reason for it - the bad news.

It's not unusual for people to begin getting a heavy load of bad news about themselves from some church environments with barely any balance of good news.  The story of scripture is often shared with a thumb pressing hard on the bad news about you.  

And it sticks in your mind as a huge piece of personal identity.  Instead of thinking of God being someone who welcomes and invites you with the desire to be with you, we can get a very different feeling.

From the Old Testament scripture, we have the story of The Fall and Adam and Eve. They chose something that was wrong or out of season for them and, as a result, it changed everything.  From shortly after the start of humanity, the relationship between God and mankind was different than its origin.

And for a lot of reasons I won't go into here for time's sake, everyone assumed God is 100% mad at and done with humanity and he's just waiting till the clock runs out and then he's gonna kill us all and send us to an eternity of pain and suffering.

But I read scripture differently. It's a story of God NOT giving up on us, but instead pursuing us fairly constantly, even if we don't understand it or agree with how he gives or doesn't give us "stuff" or blessings or save us from all bad situations, he's still hanging around.  He's not abandoned us.

Because we are sophisticated and educated, we fancy ourselves smarter than God. We come up with all sorts of hard questions that demand the answer we want, framed only in the way we word our questions. If he doesn't answer our questions inside our framework, he either doesn't exist or is not a good God.

My favorites include, "Can God make a rock so big that he can't pick it up?" and "Can Jesus microwave a burrito so hot that he can't eat it?"

More on all the doubts, questions, and problematic scenarios with God later, but for now, remember that God is still around, doing things his way and in his time and WE are his focus.

And if we read through scripture with different eyes, we see that we are something he delights in.  The writer of Hebrews says plainly that God is not ashamed of us.  He's not ashamed to call us his children and Jesus isn't ashamed to be our brother.  

He knows our limitations of understanding and patiently works with us so we can know him.

He loves us and pursues us and gives us good things pretty constantly.  Think about it...

Have you seen a sunrise lately?  

Have you seen a puppy?

Have you thought about the fact that he completely forgave all sin forever?

Have you had strawberry buttermilk ice cream?

Have you had sex?

Have you had a good night of sleep?

Have you ever taken a good dump?

Have you seen a bird fly through the air?

Have you smelled rain?

Have you seen a baby hippo?

Have you seen the clouds twist and turn into a storm and then clear and bring sun?

Have you felt the ground shake as a horse or a herd of cattle ran by you?

Have you heard a good song?

Have you smelled fresh flowers?

Have you eaten really good food?

Have you ever felt the relief from blowing your nose and clearing sinus pressure?

Have you seen the curves and lines of the human form and been amazed and attracted?

Have you seen a baby being born?

Have you considered that Jesus is the creator who showed up to live among his creation?

Have you thought about how he said that prostitutes and other "bad people" were going to be in the Kingdom?

Have you thought about your favorite swing on your favorite playground from your growing up years?

Have you had someone hug you?

And I could go on.  My point is, we're blind to a litany of amazing things we take for granted which are actually amazing blessings or good things for us to enjoy.

It's like the comedian who talked about how we complain about things without realizing how amazing things are.  Like we will be on an airplane, flying through the sky at hundreds of miles per hour, sitting in a chair and yet will complain because it doesn't recline much. 

We'll overlook that we are sitting in a chair in the sky and able to travel a distance that most all of humanity never traveled or dreamed of traveling.

I constantly am amazed that I sit in a comfortable chair and can travel at high speed down a paved road and move things and people around.

If we can chill out for a moment every now and then, we'll be able to remember and see how much amazing good stuff God has given us.

And why?  So we will enjoy it.  So we can savor it and experience it.

Don't let the pace of life and pressures from people steal that joy.

God delights in you and me and he wants you to know it.