delight – Aspirational Adventures

and how often do you sit calmly for long enough to listen? Or can you only really hear your heart’s desires if you are delighting in God?

According to Googlephotos it was ten years ago today that we first walked to Aber Falls. This was a side path so we took it. That’s what we were like back then when Renly was only 4 years old and could walk for miles and miles and miles. Interestingly we’ve not walked this path since that day. Some of that is because Natural Resources Wales have been doing a major replanting scheme so the fir trees that were beyond this path have been removed and new native to the area trees are being replanted.

This morning I was reading Psalm 37 as part of the Bible Society’s Lent readings for today and this verse jumped out at me

Take delight in the LORD,
and he will give you the desires of your heart.

What struck me was – how many of us really know the desires of our hearts? And how many of us stick to a plan we got 10, 15, 20, 40, etc years ago and keep trying to get there even though we have changed massively since then? This is why I’ve used the above picture. Only ten years ago our dog could walk miles and now, much as he enjoys his walks, he is much slower and cannot walk as far. But also this piece of land looked like it was going to be conifer trees forever but now there are struggling beeches and ash, as a more native forest is re-established. The desires and plans have changed both for my dog and this piece of land.

We moved here 10 years ago. Back then my desire was to run our house as an Airbnb house, offering hospitality to low-budget travellers. Even before Covid the ethos of Airbnb travellers was changing and I was thinking of stopping. The desire of my heart had changed. Also a around that time I was doing lots of work with children and teens around Creative Writing but again my desires have changed.

Though in both my “desires” it was Covid and Lockdown that accentuated my need to relook at my heart and what it really wanted. And as my regular blog readers know I have done a lot of QEC healing since Covid too.

My heart has changed. My desires have changed. My circumstances have changed. My energy levels have changed. So much has changed that I cannot expect to keep slogging on with what I believed my heart wanted back then. I am always changing and always evolving.

I was emailing with someone the other day about relationships and of how hard marriage is because we are in to for a very very long time and yet we are not the same people who got married back then, and neither are our spouses. We have changed. We have evolved. Circumstances have changed us. Circumstances are often a driving force for changing the desires of our hearts.

So back to the verse – I think there is a connection too. I think the psalmist is saying that it is as we delight in the Lord that we learn what the desires of our heart are. Not what we think they ought to be, or what we think they should be, or what we think would please others, but what we really really really desire deep down inside. And I do think we need to do loads of healing to get beyond the “good girl/good boy” scenario and the people pleasing, or the “what would look good to others/friends/family”.

But I honestly believe as we hang out with God, delighting in God, delighting in the fact that we are forgiven, delighting that we are loved unconditionally, and that if we mess up on those desires we can pick ourselves up and start again and that the Creator of the Universe will still be by our side. But we have to give this time. We can’t fit it in around other things. It has to be a part of all that we do, all day, every day. Back to what the Apostle Paul calls “praying continuously”. That’s just hanging out with God and delighting in them, not mithering at them to change things. A bit like something I talk about with my writing group – of not striving but of allowing things to ponder, to touch those Alpha waves, those Eureka moments – all of which come when we are delighting in something not striving to get an answer.

This verse isn’t about telling God what we want them to do but is about being with them and enjoying them. Delighting in them.

It is ok for our desires to change and change and even change back again but if we delight in the Lord then we can step out with confidence and do what will make us glow with joy and peace.

This verse jumped out at me this morning.

Who do we want to bear fruit for? I think often it is so we look good, so people will say “What at good person” or even better “what a good Christian” or even “I’d like to be a Christian because of the example that person lives.”

I think all those are admirable but to me this verse says we should be bearing fruit for God the Father’s glory so that God the Father can delight in us being God the Son [Jesus’s] followers.

So we are doing and being and “bearing fruit” [whatever that means] not for any egocentric reason but because we just delight in God.

I remember when my kids were little we would do craft projects or snuggle on the couch to read from the latest Horrible Histories magazine not because there was some great educational benefit but because we loved being together. Our “fruit” was in hanging out together being family. I do think too often now when either my adult children visit or we go to visit them we feel we should “do something” so we can say there was purpose [fruit] in traveling all that distance, when maybe we’ve actually missed the point.

I think too often with God we put on events, do church, have meetings, talk to people about God, because we think that is what “bearing fruit” is all about. But that isn’t bearing fruit for God’s glory or showing we are Jesus’s disciples. I think “fruit” isn’t something tangible, not something we can say X number of people attended this event, made this commitment, took Bibles, even got healed. I think the fruit being talked about here is that deep stuff where we learn to trust God more, even when things go wrong; when we can live in a place of deep joy and peace no matter what; when we can accept ourselves just as we which is what God does with us; when we can believe God, the Creator of the Universe, loves us unconditionally and we can love ourselves and others unconditionally.

I truly believe this “fruit” Jesus is talking about here doesn’t come with targets, attainments, no new converts but is a deeper love of self, others and of trust in God, the Creator of the Universe, loving us unconditionally. Then we are truly disciples of Jesus and would be willing to go anywhere, do anything, know our end goal but not have to put in boundaries to get there but be able to go with the flow.

I think “going with the flow” is another fruit of being a disciple of Jesus.

So bearing the fruit that is the glory of Father God, I think, involves sliding into a deeper place with them and no longer trying to achieve, attain and be noticed.