Finding Delight in the Insanity of God

Beloved of God,

I recently watched Beth Moore being interviewed on Joyce Meyer's show and she was talking about what took root in her spirit to make her such an enthusiastic teacher and student of the Bible.  She spoke of a teacher in her earlier days whom she could only describe as someone who DELIGHTED in the Word and she had to face that she didn't know this feeling herself.   DELIGHTED is defined as "feeling or showing great pleasure", synonymous with words like THRILLED, OVERJOYED, ECSTATIC and it was being used in reference to Bible study!  As I reflected on this feeling in my own relationship with scripture, I couldn't pinpoint a moment where it would fall in these categories consistently. 

In my walk with the Bible, I have been grateful for its lessons, in awe of a timely message and comforted by its presence.  I have also seen it as one more thing to add to a busy schedule and when it feels like there aren't enough energetic hours in my day, it can feel like a burden.  When faced with a single word...DELIGHTED...I realized something in me needed to be IGNITED. In that moment I prayed, "Lord, I want to DELIGHT in the Bible.  Help me see it with fresh eyes, that I can feel an unabandoned, OVERJOYED enthusiasm for Your Word.  Give me the faith and discovery of a child, that every reading leaves me with a sense of wonder.  In Jesus' name, amen."  In this prayer, it wasn't just a prayer of petition but of confession.  In my asking, I was admitting that I didn't already have what I was seeking so desperately.  As consistently as I talk to God, feel the presence of Jesus and seek the counsel and wisdom of the Holy Spirit, I wasn't taking the time to receive from the Word, this TANGIBLE expression of His LOVE.  I was saddened to think that I had abandoned a companion that had been so faithful in my darkest times.

Over the next several days, I waited for this feeling of DELIGHT to spark in me but I couldn't bring it up, as hard as I tried IN MY OWN STRENGTH and effort.  I didn't anticipate that God would answer my prayer through an invitation to a movie called, The Insanity of God and the question it asks, "Is Jesus Worth It?".  Without giving away the unfolding beauty of this movie, I will share that it is also a movie of conviction, of facing one's own fear of wondering WHAT WILL GOD ASK OF ME in my Christian walk?  Beloved, remember from whom the fear comes from.  It isn't God.

God says, CAST YOUR WORRY UPON ME and live in THIS day.  It is the enemy who would distract us from the blessings in each moment.  It is the enemy who would turn our attention to the "what ifs", in the foul display of unchecked imagination. 

Beloved, we worry about persecution in the FREEDOM to express our faith!  Yes, in a time where the potential for litigation is on the rise, western Christians have begun to use the word persecution in relation to ourselves, not just for those in China or Russia, for example.  But the truth is, compared to millions of Christians around the world, we restrict faith IN OUR FREEDOM as the rest of the world FINDS THEIR FREEDOM in persecution.  As the Insanity of God reveals,  one is TRULY FREE when you KNOW what is most important CAN NOT be TAKEN from you, in Jesus.  So yes.  Jesus...is...WORTH IT.

Since God has yet to give me my future, I can only measure any fear I have against what I have already lived.  In my walk, I have lived out two things I never thought I could endure:  The looming uncertainty of unemployment and the crushing heartbreak of watching someone I deeply love go through his final months of cancer.  God never asked me to go through those things FOR Him. He never demanded those things OF me.  Instead, it was in the MIDST of these trials that my Father PRESSED IN, took hold and kept me on my feet.  It was in the days that the world would define as TOO MUCH, that God revealed HE was enough. And in that, freedom.

In the Insanity of God, brothers and sisters in China called jail their seminary.  A Russian pastor sang his heart song to Jesus every morning as he also lived in jail as the only believer.  And what sustained them?  What was worth the risk?  What was their TREASURE in the darkest times?  Their knowledge of the the Bible. 

And so, it is through my brothers and sisters around the world who TRULY love, not just live in persecution, that I find my delight.  When God saw that I couldn't see with my own eyes, God provided theirs.