an invitation to delight

but his delight is in the law of the Lord,

and on his law he meditates day and night.

Psalm 1:2

With the fresh year, billions of well-intentioned New Year’s resolutions will be made. Most of them will be totally forgotten within a month as the demands of time and other commitments creep up on our best intentions and steal these ambitious goals from us. Yet as I look now at the first Psalm, I can’t help but see a desire that I want to make my life in the coming year... I want to delight in the law of God... to have His powerful Word fill my mind... to know the experience of day and night having scripture lead me to have the mind of Christ.

It seems ambitious to claim as a goal the description of the blessed man found in Psalm 1, but I do know by experience that in the worship of God I have found the most purpose, the most joy, the deepest centering core from which to live my life, and definitely great delight. And to center my thinking in scripture, to biblically saturate my soul, I shall personally worship. It would seem then to me that the Word of God can bring the delight of the worship of God to my heart every day.

So this year I am asking God to help me learn to delight in His Word and so delight in Him. And I’m taking this Psalm 1:2 description quite plainly as a description of how to do that. I will read and think through some scripture in the morning when I rise and again in the evening before I retire. And my prayer is that as I journal this commitment, the delight of it all, the sheer pleasure of knowing and experiencing God will become evident.

Lord,

I ask You keep me humbly in the pages of Your Word so that I may know true joy. My soul gets weary but you will revive it in You through Your Word as You promise. May my days be framed in the wonders of Your law so that I may delight in Your truth and Your saving grace. 

Amen