I took a bite into the soft, warm rosemary bread and delight
flowed through me. “Mmmhhh” was all I could say. It tasted exactly how I had
imagined, but better. I had waited all day for this bite and it was wonderful. This strange warm happiness rushed through me. Yes, over one little piece of rosemary
bread. I know it sounds totally ridiculous.
I never would have imagined that God could use one little
bite to convict me so deep. “Ashlee,” He sweetly whispered. “Ashlee, Do you delight
in me like you are delighting in that little piece of bread?” Immediately my
heart sunk. It sunk, because I knew the answer. I hung my head embarrassed.
And God sweetly and gently pulled me in
and called me to delight in Him. My mind was taken back to Psalm 42:1 “As the
deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul pants for You, O God.” And there I
stood my heart breaking, my head hanging over one little piece of bread.
You see I really do love the Lord and I truly desire to
follow Him, but I am not sure I know what it means to delight in Him. I am not
sure I know what it means to really relish in who He is. Recently, while studying covenant, God convicted me hard about the joy of being His covenant partner. God revealed to me that I was wearing His robe of righteousness as a robe of burden, instead of as a robe joy. At the time we were studying about David and Jonathan and what it means to exchange robes in covenant, and I caught myself saying, can you imagine how special David felt to wear the robe of a prince? So now that I look back, I can see how God has been preparing the way for this little word: delight
So there I stood a girl with bread and I knew
that God had given me a word to focus on in 2014. I really didn’t want to do
the trendy, bloggy, thing and pick a word for the year. Yet as I prayed about
it further I felt the Lord pulling me in and showing me that I need to learn to
delight in Him, in His Word, in His people, and in the ministry He has given
me.
I sit here, still thinking about that little piece of
bread, and grateful that God would use it to show me such a deep truth that I
was ignoring. As I walk through 2014, delight will be my trendy, bloggy, word
of the year. Join me as I learn how to delight in Jesus, in the Word, in His
people, and in ministry.
Yep, just call me the girl with bread.
