Fueled by Delight
There is a way to live unbound. It isn’t easy. In fact, it takes grit. Because what Jesus said is true, the only way to find your life is to loose it. And we do this when we give our life to Jesus, as Lord, and let Him call the shots. We do this when we identify with His death and resurrection through baptism. When we yield our way and accept His Way, we get unbound— which begins a process of learning to live it.
Humor me for a moment as I compare our life with a speedway race car, zipping down the track. Instead of fuel, our car runs on the calm-delight-and-gladness-kind-of-joy that we fill up with, in our personal relationship with God. In this way, we could say that the level of our endurance and victory is directly related to our level of delight. But, this delight isn’t the same as the adrenaline rush of feelings on a sunny day. And it’s not the gush of happiness flowing through our veins. It’s the calm delight that sparked our dead battery back to life and fills us with gladness that overflows from gratitude.
Many of us have experienced the spark but are confused why there is still sputtering coming from under the hood, funny noises, and so many little things that aren’t running smoothly. Well, could it be that we also need that fuel-of-delight that only comes from finding rest for our soul through the Lordship of Jesus in our life? It requires a leap of faith to yield ourselves to Christ, but when we do it correctly, it has no other option than to produce trust in His never-ending faithfulness. And that trust brings a continuing supply of pure, unadulterated delight, the kind that cannot be found anywhere else.
There is a direct connection between yielding to God and experiencing joy.
Today, let’s ask the Lord if there is anything that we need to let go of… any unmet desires, opinions, hurts or judgments. Did you know that even righteous judgments hinder us? When we judge others based on what we think is true and right, even when we have discernment about someone, we must yield it to God the same way we release our desire, opinions, and wounds to Him. If we hold onto any of these things, we bind them to us in an unhealthy way. Even what we think of as a justified judgment has the potential to poison us when we hold onto it. If we want to be unbound, we must release it. If we let everything go except for just one little thing, then we are only yielded to the point of that one little thing. It becomes a BIG THING.
Let’s take time today to ask the Lord if there is anything occupying our mind that we need to apprehend. He may surprise us by revealing something we didn’t even realize needed to be yielded and nailed to the cross along with everything else.