Finding Faith in His Delight

        Tucked between the bed and nightstand, I braced myself for what lay ahead in my morning devotions. Would there be more doubts and struggles or would I find the rest and peace I longed for? The darkness had engulfed me for months but the Lord was re-revealing Himself to me, Scripture by Scripture; whisper by whisper.
     I clung to the words I already knew He had infused into my weary spirit. Each morning I read those words I had written on 3x5 index cards, inscribing them on my heart. He had made it clear to me that Faith was not a feeling. It was a choice on my part to believe His word. A choice to stand on it, to grasp it as my life on the days when my feelings were reeling, far from the joy and confidence I had possessed when the Lord had first captured my heart.
     I was making the choice to believe. I knew it was life to my very bones, my heart, my lungs. In the quiet, I went through my prayerful routine. Praise for the Lord, read Scripture and allow a devotional to teach me, picture the Lord in my mind and listen for His voice. In those few moments of silence, words flicked across my mind. Words that seemed to be the Lord speaking to me but I knew it couldn't be the Lord. Because the words on that screen in my mind said, "I am delighted in you."
     In my knowledge of Scripture, we, as His followers, were to delight ourselves in Him. No where did it say that He delights in us. Or at least that was what I thought.
     Then I could sense a prompting to look through Scripture just in case there was a passage that alluded to the Lord finding pleasure in us. Opening my Bible's concordance, I found a verse that literally made me gasp and sent chills through me.

     "The Lord delights in the way of the man whose steps he has made firm;" Psalm 37:23 NIV

     To know that I had heard the voice of the Lord in my stillness before Him bolstered my faith. I had both His Word to grasp through times of whirring emotions. And I had the joy of having experienced Him personally, once again in my life.
     Since then, I have found other Scriptures that reassure me of the Lord's great delight in His children. In times of doubt, fear, or guilt, His love and joy in us can soothe and quiet our anxious hearts.

     Which of His words have brought you knowledge that he delights in you?

From My Heart to Yours,

Linking with Spiritual Sundays and Scripture and a Snapshot