Delighted

By Cheri Cowell –

There are times I really miss my Dad. It has been many years since he went to heaven, and yet there are times it seems like last year. Usually those are the times I really need my Dad to do what only a father can do for his child; I need my Dad to tell me how proud he is of me. I need him to beam from ear to ear at what I have accomplished. I need him to say that no matter what others may think, he believes that I have no competition.

If you are a father, this is the gift you give your children. Scripture calls this “delight,” and if you think about it, who does not want to be ‘delighted’ in? Our earthly father’s relationship is supposed to be a small taste of what our relationship with our heavenly Father is to be like.

I hope your father delighted in you, as mine did in me. If you did not have that kind of relationship, I know it is harder for you to understand how much your heavenly Father adores, cherishes, and delights in you. He is proud of you; beams from ear to ear when He thinks of you, and believes that you have no competition.

In the scripture below, Paul’s prayer for us is that we deeply know the reality of God’s transforming love that surpasses knowledge. How can we come to understand such love? Through our earthly relationships. It is only through loving and being loved that we learn God’s love is real. And only then can we be truly filled with Him.

PRAYER I thank You, Lord, for my earthly father, regardless of how imperfect that love was, and for the relationships through which You show me Your love today. Help me more fully understand the depth of Your love and to experience what it means to be delighted in. Help me show this kind of love to my children and those You put in my path this week.

“My response is to get down on my knees before the Father, this magnificent Father who parcels out all heaven and earth. I ask him to strengthen you by his Spirit—not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength—that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite him in. And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you’ll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:14–19 MSG).