Like every growing organism, relationships need essential nutrients to be healthy and grow. In this series we’re looking at 6 of these that enable us to genuinely know others at a deep-hearted level: connection, commitment, curiosity, empathy, reciprocity, and delight. Today, we’ll look at our final nutrient of delight.
To delight is to find extravagant and explosive pleasure and joy in someone or something. Delight is extravagant because it bursts the bounds of average joys; explosive because it cannot be held in for too long as it’s always looking to overflow and make itself known. Scripture staggers and sweetly silences us with verses that declare that God himself delights in sinners who have fled to his grace for refuge (Isaiah 62:4; Zephaniah 3:17). It’s almost too much to take in.
Most of us, however, find it hard to genuinely delight in others? Why? I think there are three primary reasons: we’re so preoccupied with ourselves that we don’t notice things in others to delight in; we’re preoccupied with their deficiencies and therefore find nothing to delight in; or, lastly, we’re not convinced God delights in us so we don’t know how to delight in others.
Delighting in others, then, is founded on the security of God’s delight in us and a kind of self-forgetfulness that joyfully sees the unique glory of another. What, then, are we to delight in and what does it look like?
We are to delight in who our friend, spouse, or family member is through creation. Because they are made in God’s image they possess unique beauty and display unique dignity. Their story, personality, natural abilities, and many more things are aspects of who they are that we can take delight in.
We are to delight in who our friend, spouse, or family member is becoming through redemption. Not only are they made in God’s image, but they are being remade into the image of Jesus Christ. They are, if you look close enough, growing in the fruits of the Spirit and you have experienced grace from them in your relationship. They are being changed “from glory to glory” into the image of Jesus (2 Cor. 3:18) and this is cause for great delight.
How can we show delight? Naming and embodying.
We can express our delight for them by naming, out loud, their character, personality, ways of doing things, and specific actions. Are you not deeply encouraged when someone speaks a truthful, encouraging word to you? You can do the same things for others!
We can also express our delight through ways we physically embody our feelings towards them, especially our facial expression. Scripture says that God’s face shines upon us in Christ (Numbers 6:25-26; 2 Cor. 4:6). At the same time Scripture also says no one has ever seen God, but if we love others, God’s love is perfected among us (1 John 4:12). In other words, when we delight in someone with our words and facial expression, we’re giving them a small glimpse of what God’s face is like towards them.
Delighting in someone moves the relationship forward. It says, “I see you- all of it, the good and the bad- and I delight in you.” It also continues to invite them on the side-by-side journey of friendship and of being known.
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