The Greatest Delight of the Greatest One
I was walking through the mall one Saturday, and then my feet (without any knowledge of my brain) walked me right into a candle store. And soon, my shopping trip was hijacked by smells — dusky ones, flowery ones, delicious ones, crisp ones. All I could do was smell one candle after another until I had sniffed them all, rating how much I liked them with my level of nose wrinkle-age and the expression on my face. I found in the store my favorite vanilla scented candles. On sale. They were coming home with me immediately.
Oh, how I adore the scent of vanilla. So warm. So inviting. So sweet. Every time I smell my candles, they take me over. I feel like I am walking into my childhood home with a vanilla cake baking in the oven. Smelling these things just makes me happy.
The fragrance of my little candles wafts through the air at the most random of times, and one day when the sweet smell came to me, the loveliest thought came to me too — that maybe this is how God feels about me. Maybe this smile-raising happiness, this enveloping joy I feel when I smell my sweet vanilla is how God feels when He looks upon my face, when the fragrant offering of my love for Him and for others lifts up to His heavenly throne.
Oh, but my dear sisters in Christ, this is not just a lovely thought — this is the loveliest of realities!
“And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma. {Ephesians 5:2, NKJV}
“For the LORD takes delight in His people; He crowns the humble with victory. {Psalm 149:4, NIV}
God delights in you with the kind of delight that would make Him smile just because you woke up this morning; the kind of delight that makes His mighty voice burst joyfully into song over you; the kind of delight in you that captivates Him even more than a sweeping night sky strewn with endless stars, more than a brilliant sunset over glistening waves, more than anything this universe has to offer; the kind of delight that the offering of your heart to Him is His favorite fragrance that fills the air of heaven, and it just makes Him abundantly and eternally happy.
Oh, you, yes, you dear ones are God’s truest joy, His dearest love, His greatest delight.
Oh, how my life might be different if I believed this. I mean really believed this — believed this on those days when I wish I could make everybody happy, but I can’t; believed this when I feel so unlovable, so unworthy; believed this when it feels like God’s heart is eons away.
So come believe this with me. Come believe not only in God’s great love for us, but also in His great delight over us. Let us believe so that we might find joy and rest in this great delight of the greatest One. Let us believe so that we could feel we can always gratefully and humbly approach the Lord’s throne of grace with confidence. Let us believe so that we might feel the captivated heart of God forever knit together with our own through His Spirit. Let us believe so that our every day and our every thought would be colored by the radiant hues of God’s delight over us. Let us believe so that His delight over us would stir us to all the more delight in Him and His ways. And let us believe so that we could wake up every morning and smile.
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