God Delights In You

It’s like I want to interact with everyone, have them sit down across from me, and ask them to shut up for a second. It feels like everyone who comes to me wants something from me. And I just want them to press pause. Stop thinking, for one second, about everything they are trying to get. All the posturing, all the reacting, all the influencing, all the manipulation, all the “right” words used, the looks, the glances, the clothes, the selfies, the filters, the gym time. Just drop it for a second. Take a deep breath. Shut up. Stop fidgeting. Just. Exist.

Start to acknowledge and receive God’s love. You are a miracle. Literally a skin-bag of organs, bones, muscles, and a million other things that function and give you life. And your life is on purpose. Nothing to do with your parents. Nothing to do with your circumstances. You are on purpose because God said so. He SAYS so. Every day, every moment, every breath is because he says so. He sees you. He knows you. He literally is in you as he expands and contracts your lungs, filling them with his air.

Wait. I saw that. Don’t get distracted. Disregard every other “reality” of life. This is THE Reality. Nothing is more important than your very existence. Because by it we know we are seen, and that we are loved. And not just a, “Yeah God keeps me alive so that means I’m loved.” Of course it does! AND on top of that, you are delighted in!

This overwhelming, affectionate heart of God has been veiled too long! It has been misinterpreted, mistreated, and misrepresented so horrifically that people ACTUALLY think God is about rules! How wonderfully absurd! Wonderful because the Truth is So. Much. Better. If we took a moment to tell off the other places we go for validity, we must take a moment to tell off every incorrect notion of God we have. No matter if it is deeply ingrained or shallowly tolerated, it must be jettisoned. Like, comically put on a rocket and sent it the hell away from here.

Your boring and dispassionate experience at grandma's church when you were little. The disgusting words said to you from the lips of a Christian. The judgmental stares, mean rumors, vile evils done to you that in your head were strongly or loosely connected to the name of Jesus. And, without diminishment or invalidating them, your pain. Your scars. Your wounds. Your tears. Those matter, and Jesus will redeem them. But at this very moment they must be let go.

All must be lost. Completely abandoned. So that in this moment your heart can hear one thing.

GOD DELIGHTS IN YOU.

The one who made you, formed you, put that silly freckle in your earlobe and chose the perfect pitch for your laughter and extended your nose to its exact stopping point in the world.

The one who has counted and caught every tear that has broken the threshold of your lower eyelid and all the others that didn’t, holding you as you ugly cried uncontrollably.

The one who walks with you in your favorite places, seeing and smiling at all the little things that make you giggle quietly to yourself and remember how glad you are to be alive.

The one who has seen every middle finger you have extended towards the heavens as you spewed the most colorful language you knew, pouring your rage and pain and doubt and fear out at him.

The one who knows every question of your heart and refuses to give you the “right Christian answer” while telling you to suck it up, but instead holds your hand every step of the journey.

The one who knows the most horrific things you’ve done and said and thought, those things that have ruined lives and derailed futures and broken hearts, including your own.

That God, HE is the one who delights in YOU.

It doesn’t make sense. It is overwhelming. It must and it will speak into every moment of your life. It will be a lifelong wrestling match. It will make you laugh and cry and mad and peaceful. But this perfect, unqualified, unloseable AND unearnable, unchanging, generous, intense, and joyful delight and love from God is the truest thing about you. Nothing else defines you. Personality is weak. Gifts and strengths are pathetic. Looks, relationships, accomplishments, possessions. Garbage. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying and is not representing God.

God delights in you.

Now, Oh Delightful One, let’s spend every moment living as royalty and inviting everyone into this family, created and stitched together by Love Himself.