Delight In The Lord!

Trading apple for…

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

Imagine receiving a big, red apple on Monday morning from a five year old beautiful, little girl! I got that golden opportunity today! She is Ayesha, a muslim girl studying in our school, she is like an apple herself, lovely and delicious! I said ‘thank you’ and sent her; her father is an auto driver and had joined his four children in our school. Well, you must hear the rest of the story that is important for our meditation today! Are you listening? She is the fourth girl of five children in her family, her sister came to me after five minutes and said, ‘madam, my sister brought that apple for you and she wants you to give her a bag, pencil, scale, rubber and many things ( the list was endless)! My jaws dropped as I sat in my desk, when the kid who gave me the apple came to me again and said, ‘bag’ in a low whisper and left. Honestly I did not have any school bags with me in store and this little one had watched me gift a big school bag during one of the prize day celebrations and she had planned this ‘trading’. She traded her apple for a long list of stationary items! Smart kid!

I tell you, though I found her smart and shrewd; yet her childish innocence and beauty were irresistible! I called her to my room, clicked few snaps with her holding the apple and made her happy. She was thrilled! She was irresistible! She made my day!

I just wondered, do we ever go to God with an apple and delight Him! Well, literally not an apple but something that thrills His heart! At this moment I remember of an email I received from one of my subscribers who had taken a loan of about 2 lakhs from their work place to contribute to their church-building fund . Wow! Very, very rarely do we hear of such testimonies, people take a loan for a foreign leisure trip but never would they help their pastor in building the Kingdom of God! Are you listening? These are the things that excite God! How about talking a day off and spending the time in His presence with fasting? Glory to Jesus! How about cutting off that illicit relationship completely from your life that has been a dividing wall between you and God? God would be super excited. We live in sin, we roll in the dirt, we fill our lives with trash, we fill our mind with garbage, we fill our mouth with all possible obscenities and yet, we shamelessly go to Him with a long ‘give me’ list. How about taking an apple like that little kid, who focused on making me happy first, before submitting her big want list! Isn’t that proactive thinking? You know what, the whole day she kept beaming at me and wishing me good afternoon and good evening, until the end of the day. She did not give up!

You know what, I understood this about God and that is, He wants us to love Him wholeheartedly and crazily! Just not small portions but bring Him a big red apple! Whenever the situation becomes too critical and I just go bonkers, I get into my room and I would cry out to Him and say, “Lord, I gave up my job, I gave my everything for you, I have none but you, where would I go for help, please hear my prayers, BAM……He would do something!

Take the big, red apple first, though: the apple of surrender, the apple of whole hearted love, the apple of living a holy life, the apple of separation from the world.