He Delights In You

There was a huge sense of peace in the home tonight. It was quite a change from this morning, when I felt fuzzy headed, trying to get down on paper something that resembled a list of what I could do.  At least then I could keep on top of the house necessities to a level that satisfied my need to not feel overwhelmed by ‘stuff that needs to be done’. I’d been reading a little last night about procrastination. It’s become an increasing annoyance to me over the last few months or so, it seems to have creeped in, and now I’m trying to find ways to overcome it. I want to do too much. I think I can do way more in a day than is realistically possible. I’ve started my anti-procrastination journey by something so simple, writing smaller and more focused lists, that way I can psychologically make myself think that I have achieved loads because I am much more likely to tick everything off it! When I type this, I am beginning to think that this method is just another way to procrastinate, because the faster I get the list completed, the more time I will have to procrastinate on the other item that I didn’t get down on my list, wow, this is so messy! As you can see, things are not always that straightforward, but if we can just do a little every day, eventually we’ll get there.

Back to the peace in our home this evening, it was loud and sometimes quite intense, three children running around playing together, a little 2-year-old shouting to be heard, I finally found a gap to have a shower, but was playing a sermon over the Bluetooth speaker way too loud to try and override some the surrounding noise. That was my attempt at seeking the Lord in that moment. My husband was rounding up the children in a mission to get them to settle before bed. This might not sound like peace to you, but in the middle of all this noise was a gentle, warm, comforting sense of peace. It was tangible, it was love. Amazingly there wasn’t any quarrelling between the children, there wasn’t a ‘he pushed me’, or a ‘she didn’t knock my door before coming in’, there wasn’t even a toddler crying.

Taking a step back, in this precious moment, I could see my family filled with contentment and joined together. I knew that Jesus was right there with us. He was delighting in us, because he loves us. As the noise settled down, and the children began to disappear off into their room for bedtime, I heard a whisper in my heart. It started when I looked at my eldest son, and I could see a look in his eyes. I began to wonder how he felt about having a little brother, not that he ever felt his little brother was competition, he loves him dearly and takes being the eldest sibling very seriously. It was just something that came alight in my heart. How does he feel about his little brother getting all this attention? Each one of us were giving it to him, including my eldest son. Does he ever feel like he must work for our attention? Then the quiet whisper came to me, ‘you don’t have to DO anything for me.’ It reminded me of a time when Jesus spoke very similar words into my heart, ‘you don’t have to DO anything to make me love you anymore.’ This is exactly what I felt my son needed to hear, or maybe he didn’t, but I was going to tell him anyway, because I delight in my children in the same way that Jesus delights in us, but of course he delights more than we can ever imagine. We don’t need to DO to gain his love and attention. We can be resting in his presence, and he will always be with us and always be delighting in us and gently leading us along the path towards His glory and towards his love.