Wholly Delight
Hello and welcome to Wifey Wednesdays, a podcast for women who are seeking to be the best wives they can be. I’m your host, Emily Hatfield, and this is the show where the plan is always to do thing’s God’s way, especially our marriages.
On today’s episode, we’re going to be looking at what it means to wholly delight in the Lord.
Recently, I’ve gotten to spend time studying from Psalms 111 and 112 for a lesson I did at the Freed-Hardeman Spiritual Growth workshop. That lesson is available online I think, so I am going to do my best not to just completely duplicate all of the things I did there, but I couldn’t leave this lesson out of the season because it feels like such an important piece.
What does delight mean? In Hebrew, the word means to be mindful or attentive to; to give excited attention or to bend or curve toward.
Using that definition, look at Psalm 111:2 - “Great are the works of the Lord, studied by all who delight in them.”
My delight is supposed to be in God’s word. It is there that I read of His great works and wondrous deeds. It is in the pages of scripture that I find the greatest treasures of this world — mostly because it is other worldly. This is a sacred collection of the very thoughts and heart of God, given to me for my learning and benefit; given to me so that I can find life and love and hope and…well, everything. In God’s word I find Him, and He is truly everything.
So my question is, is our delight in the Lord and in His word? Are we bent toward Him? Are we mindful and attentive to Him? Does He get the most of our attention, the best of us? Do we give excited attention to His word or do we feel a compulsion to have to read and have to study in order to check our “good Christian” box?
The works of the Lord ARE great - whether I acknowledge that or not. But if I find my delight in God and in Who He is and what He’s shown me, I’m going to study. I’m going to draw near to Him.
And so if you find that your study habits are lacking — if you find that your zeal for His word is low - might I ask — how is your delight in God? Because chances are, if we’re not delighting in Him, our desire to study isn’t going to be very strong.
The remainder of Psalm 111 is just an expansion of God’s greatness. The psalmist writes that God’s works are full of splendor and majesty; they are great and redemptive. He is faithful and just - He is gracious and merciful. These are the things we learn about who God is from reading about what He does and has done throughout all of time. And the more we read and the more we uncover, the more we want to read and the more we want to uncover because the depths of His goodness are deeper than we can ever fully uncover; His greatness is higher than we can ever fully summit. We will never study enough - find out enough - to encapsulate all of Who God is and what He has done, and that’s part of the reason that study is so incredible. If I will wholly delight in God, then truly every single time I study I will come away with greater blessing and with more hope and more foundation for the rocky times. The more I study, the greater love I will develop for God and the greater hatred I will develop for the sin that cost my Savior everything.
To wholly delight in the Lord means I will find my greatest joy in seeking to uncover everything I can about Him.
So the Psalm ends - “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, all those who practice it have good understanding; His praise endures forever.”
Then, the sister psalm, Psalm 112 - picks up where this one leaves off.
Psalm 112:1 - “blessed is the man who fears the Lord; who greatly delights in His commandments”
So, fearing God - revering Him and standing in awe of Him - that comes from studying from His word. Fearing God then gives us wisdom…wisdom to practice the things we have learned from and of God. And those commandments we learn, they will not feel like a burden. Instead, when we fear the Lord, we are blessed — and we will find great delight in doing the things He has commanded.
Why will we find great delight? Why will we not feel burdened by rule keeping? Why will we not find following the Lord to be a drudgery or a thing to be checked off a list?
If you continue through Psalm 112, you’ll find the reasons for the blessed state of one who wholly delights in the Lord. There is a steadiness there. Light dawns in the darkness - verse 4. The righteous will never be moved - verse 6. He will not fear bad news - verse 7. He will be steady instead of fearful in hardship - verse 8.
This is the reason that I am so passionate about developing a Bible study plan for yourself; this is the reason I am so adamant that, as women of God, we turn our appetites toward deep Bible study and not surface level, feel good days that are all about our decorations and not our deep delight in knowing God. You aren’t going to find strength for the rocky path or comfort in the valley of the shadow of death if you’ve only ever studied God’s word in order to know how to modify your behavior. If that has been the case, you may not feel very steady in bad news. You may not see the light in the darkness. If we’ve never dug into God’s word — how will we have the lamp to our feet and the light to our path?
God has given us everything we need for life and godliness. And so much of that comes in God giving us His perfect, preserved word. If you go back to Psalm 111:5, David writes that God remembers His covenant with us…that He continually blesses us and never forsakes us because He remembers. Psalm 112 is asking us — do you remember? Because if you do, you’ll find comfort and steadiness and strength to do all the things to uphold your end of the covenant.
So how are we doing with our end of this remembering?
Do we wholly delight in the Lord? Do we find our strength and comfort in Him? Do we long for the word as our nourishment? Do we miss it if we’ve been away from it? If we miss a day of study, do we notice? If we haven’t been connected to God’s word, do we feel it? Or have we become numb? Are we more interested in other things? Would we rather give our attention to something else?
Please don’t come away from this episode thinking - wow, what a guilt trip about Bible study. I don’t mean it in that way at all. Instead, I want us to come away thinking — wow, God has truly poured so much into His word…I am so very interested in continuing to dig so I can continue to learn. I want to know more about Him. I want to see more of His plan. I want to uncover more ‘Easter eggs’ if you will. I want to keep expanding my knowledge of Him so that my heart can keep expanding to look like His. I want to learn more about Him so that I hate sin more.
So let’s take a moment to remember the covenant we entered into when we became Christians, and then make every effort to spend time remembering that covenant every single day. Let’s pray for more interest in God’s word. Let’s pray for more wisdom and discernment. Let’s pray for more delight. If we’re struggling, why not ask God to help us change our appetite from worldly things to His word? He is able to do exceedingly more than we ask or imagine — and if we’re asking things in His will, will He not give us all things? He hasn’t even withheld His own Son from us — would He withhold a desire for His treasured word? So let’s ask. Let’s pray. And then let’s read and study and delight wholly in the Lord.
And as one final little admonition — can I just say, let’s try to make the ratio more of His word and less of other people’s words. I mean, here I am on a podcast, talking about God’s words — and I’m glad you’re here listening. But we cannot have other people’s words be the loudest voice in our lives, even if they’re good words. I have a lot of writers that I really love, but I can’t depend on their pre-digested thoughts on God’s word more than I depend on God’s words themselves. I truly believe that the Author of life itself wrote His word in a way that is understandable for us. So pray for wisdom, for understanding, and for a heart that is more open to Him.
Having God as our everything — finding our true delight in Him — that’s going to give us the best life possible. Blessed is the one who fears the Lord — blessed is the one who wholly delights in Him. Go to the word — read and study and search and see — and then come to see the blessedness that God will shower upon you through the comfort and steadiness and protection and strength He will pour into your life in abundance.
That’s why Jesus came…that we may have life and that we may have it more abundantly. Before Jesus came to earth, He was in the beginning with God as the Word. If we claim to love Jesus, we cannot despise time in the Word. We cannot separate the two.
I am grateful you’re here. I’m thankful for all of the years you’ve been listening to my rambling thoughts. I’ve got a few things in the works that, in the coming months, I hope to share with you as I continue seeking to wholly devote myself to God and continuing striving to wholly delight in Him. As I’m learning and growing, so are some of my interests, and I hope you’ll come along we me as we explore some different themes about God’s word. But…that’s for later. For now, we will just continue plugging along on this season of Wifey Wednesdays, next week looking at what it means to wholly follow the Lord.
Thanks again for joining me for another episode of this podcast, and until next time remember - love God, love your husband.
