DELIGHT YOURSELF IN THE LORD

One of the richest promise passages in Scripture is Psalm 37:3-5:
“Trust in the Lord, and do good;
Dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness.
Delight yourself also in the Lord,
And He shall give you the desires of your heart.
Commit your way to the Lord,
Trust also in Him,
And He shall bring it to pass.”

This is a promise on which you can center your life, your ministry, your family, your future. It is a passage to embrace and draw on for your whole life.

There is so much truth in this passage that one or two readings are not enough to begin to scratch the surface of what is here. I recently read a wonderful statement about truth and how we take it into our lives.

“Truth is something like the cluster (grapes) of the vine: if we would have wine from it, we must bruise it; we must press and squeeze it many times. The bruiser’s feet must come down joyfully upon the bunches, or else the juice will not flow; and they must tread well the grapes, or else much of the precious liquid will be wasted. So we must . . . tread the clusters of truth” (Morning and Evening, Charles Spurgeon).

Simply put, if we are going to get the richness out of these verses in Psalm 37, we must not hurry through them or rush away from them. We need to mark them and return to them over and over until, just as with the winepress, we get all the richness out of them.

When God informed Joshua that he was the new leader of the Jewish people, one of the instructions He gave to him was, “This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night. . . . For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success” (Joshua 1:8).

God was not saying to him that he should literally eat the Word but that he should take it to himself and study it, think about it, spend time with it and let the Word speak to him. This is what meditating is—rehearsing or repeating the Word over and over as it slowly releases its riches to us.

It is always our choice to trust or dwell in the richness of the land, the territory that God has destined for us.

It seems impossible that it has been almost ten months since I began to receive treatment on the cancer in my throat. (Praise the Lord that all the current scans show no evidence of any cancer remaining in the throat or the neck! To God be all the glory!) Every morning for 39 days I had radiation on my throat. While the treatment lasted only 20 or 25 minutes, I had to remain completely immobile with my head secured to the table under the radiation equipment. A mask was fitted to my face and fastened to the table to ensure that my head did not move; it was slightly claustrophobic and made me look like Freddie Krueger!

I found there were two ways for me to get through this time without anxiety. The first was to worship. I would simply begin to praise and worship the Lord nonverbally. Any anxiety or apprehension would be overtaken by the presence of the Lord . . . it was glorious! I had some wonderful times with the Lord while the “death star,” as I called the radiation equipment, hovered over me.

The second way I got through these times was to recite passages of Scripture that I had memorized or thought I had. I would slowly work my way through a passage like Joshua 1:1-9, or Psalm 23 or Psalm 91. More than once I would get so caught up in rehearsing a verse or a phrase that the attendant would have to tell me the session for the day was over. These were rich moments as, in Charles Spurgeon’s language, I was crushing the grapes to squeeze more of the richness and flavor out.

Practically, what I have just described is the meditation that God spoke to Joshua about. It is my personal belief that one of the aspects of “delighting yourself in the Lord” is this very process. Delighting yourself in the Lord means that you are inclined toward the Lord. Those who do not value the Word of God never have time to read the Word, study the Word, or give thought to the Word, and so they almost never get to enjoy the release of the goodness, the richness of the Word.

I tried for too long to complicate my understanding of the phrase, “Delight yourself in the Lord.” I tried to make it far too complicated and esoteric. I finally came to realize what a mistake I was making and that I just needed to relax and enjoy the goodness of God; enjoy the blessing of being in Christ and filled with the Holy Spirit; enjoy the richness of His Word, the richness of fellowship with fellow believers, and the excitement of following His leading for my life. I am finally learning, after all these years, to delight myself in Him—and it is good!