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Today, I'd like to share with you a chapter from my book From Captive to Conqueror, a series of reflections on 2 Samuel 22. You can find two other portions which I shared in previous posts by clicking these links.
In this chapter, a person who had been nearly drowning in stormy seas has cried out to God for help. God has heard and come swiftly and powerfully onto the scene.
And then ...
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He
rescued me because he delighted in me.
(2 Samuel 22:20b)
This simple statement is
truly awesome if you stop to ponder it.
When I first shared some of what I was learning from 2 Samuel 22 with a
co-worker, I read a few verses, commented on them, and then continued with the
next section. When I came to this verse,
I shrugged and shook my head, prepared to pass it over thinking this was one
section that couldn’t possibly apply to me.
How could God possibly delight in me with all the darkness that had been
in my life for so long? My friend,
however, didn’t let me get past this treasure.
“Read it again, she said.
He rescued me because he delighted in me.
“Read
it again,” she said, knowing I hadn’t caught the message.
He rescued me . . . because
he delighted in me.
“Read
it again,” she urged. I was still
missing it.
He rescued me . . . because . . . he delighted in me.
“Read it again.” As I read, a sob rose in my throat.
He rescued me . . . because . . . he delighted . . . in me.
Slowly but surely, the truth
finally sank in. God delighted in me,
even when my life was a mess. No, He
didn’t delight in the mess. Of course not. But He delighted in the person He made me to
be. He delighted in the person He was
going to help me to become now that I had called to Him for help.
If you have never come face
to face with yourself, so to speak – where you looked beyond the perfect,
smiling, all-together mask you allow others to see – and looked at the uglier
face that is usually kept carefully hidden from view, this verse may not mean
much to you. But if you have, as I have,
looked deep into the eyes of that uglier face and seen what darkness is there
in the hidden places of your life, perhaps you can appreciate the significance
of this verse.
I suspect that we all have
at one time or another had a hidden face of some sort. Perhaps that face is still there. For some of us, that hidden face may be
uglier than it is with others. We prefer
to ignore it – to pretend it doesn’t exist.
We try to do all the right things to be looked on with favor by
ourselves, by others, and by God.
Perhaps subconsciously we think that if our public mask is presentable
enough, maybe no one will notice the ugly face hidden behind it.
The reality is, though, that
God sees through that mask and knows exactly what is hidden in the depths of
our being. He knows about the anger, the
jealousy, the bitterness, the self-pity, the addictions and compulsions that
eat away at us from the inside.
And yet . . . He delights in
us. Wow!
How is that even possible? God
delights in me! It is because He
delighted in me that He rescued me! The
order of those two phrases is very significant.
Notice how this truth is put.
He rescued me because He delighted in me.
This verse does not say “He
delighted in me after He rescued me” or “He delighted in me because I
did a good job winning my own battles.”
No. The truth is that God
delights in us simply because we are His. He delights to rescue us from the traps and chains of our own sin as
well as from the wounds that others have inflicted on us simply because He made
us for fellowship and intimacy with Him.
Over the months that
followed my “discovery” of 2 Samuel 22, and especially after my friend helped
me to accept that God really does delight in me, every time I read this verse,
tears would come to my eyes and a lump to my throat. The love God has for me—the love He has for
you—is so great that He longs to rescue us. Spiritually speaking, we may be battered and
bruised, our clothing muddy and torn. We
may, in a spiritual sense, absolutely reek from sins in which we have
indulged. We may be wearing coats of
shame put on us by others who always put us down and tell us in numerous ways
how completely worthless we are.
Yet God does not see us that
way. He sees us as His own precious
creation who He longs to bring close to Himself.
He rescued me, because He delighted in me.
He will rescue you because
He delights in you, too. I pray that the
healing truth of these words will pour over your heart and soul.
*******************************************
Have you ever pondered the idea of God delighting
in YOU? Is this idea an easy one to
accept or a difficult one? Why?
Hai ka Julie,
ReplyDeletei am so happy read this post at the moment. It takes several hours for me to understand, ponder, find the mean of some words in google translate. as i know my English isn't good enough yet and need to improve. Ka, I don't know what to say, because i got lots of precious things from this post.
((He knows about the anger, the jealousy, the bitterness, the self-pity, the addictions and compulsions that eat away at us from the inside)).
few of them, may be still in my life that i don't realize.
The love God has for me—the love He has for you—is so great that He longs to rescue us. Spiritually speaking, we may be battered and bruised, our clothing muddy and torn. We may, in a spiritual sense, absolutely reek from sins in which we have indulged. We may be wearing coats of shame put on us by others who always put us down and tell us in numerous ways how completely worthless we are.
(i love it)
love
Yohana B
I'm so glad this spoke to you.
DeleteThe celebration at the CH will start at 10:00 tomorrow and finish about 1:00.