“Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” Psalm 37:4

Many of us know this verse and love this verse. Perhaps though we focus too much on the last part of the verse. I want to talk about the first part, this delighting in the Lord. How exactly do we do this?

I have wondered this for a long time. I’ve prayed through this verse and asked the Lord to teach me how to delight myself in him. This past week I may have found a key to doing it. I was studying Psalm 100 and pondering the commands contained in it. We are called to make a joyful noise and to come into his presence with singing. There are seven commands in this psalm and they all center around worshiping God. Worship is obviously not a Sunday-morning-only thing.

Then I realized how little I worship God from Monday to Saturday. I read my Bible and I pray, but do I worship? And do I get to the heart of worship which really is delighting in God? I saw a severe lack in this area of my relationship with the Lord.

The end of Psalm 100 contains the reason why we are to obey those seven commands to worship God. “For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.” I began meditating on that and was struck by how little joy I have day to day compared with how amazingly great God is. My choice of adjectives are anemic compared to what he deserves, but as I pondered and thought on who God really is, I was struck by how lackluster my joy has been. He is worthy of so much joy and in the day to day of living I barely express any of it.

So this past week I’ve been hunting down worship songs and doing more singing. It hasn’t been easy because I have never really transitioned from CDs to digital music. I don’t have an easy way to carry it around. But I do have an old car that still has a CD player. So I’ve begun to do more singing and worshiping in the car. And I’m going to find more good worship music on a digital platform so I can carry it with me and worship while I work and run and go about my day.

We were made to worship God. We were designed to find our soul satisfaction in him. And part of what it means to delight yourself in the Lord is using every means available to nourish your soul in who God is and who he is for us. I’m sure there are other ways to do this besides singing, but this is where I am going to start.

“Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord, O my soul! I will praise the Lord as long as I live; I will sing praises to my God while I have my being.” Psalm 146:1-2