Delighting, Not Grudging

Delighting, Not Grudging

 

“I delight to do thy will, O my God” (Psalm 40:8)

 

If our affections are set on the will of God, we must love His will. It is impossible that God’s will should seem hard to a person whose affections are set on it. It may be accompanied with hard things, but in itself it must be a delight. Our Lord could say with the psalmist David, “I delight to do thy will, O my God” (Ps. 40:8), because He was dead to everything that was contrary to His Father’s will. Until our affections are similarly so set on the will of God as to delight in it, we have not “taken up the cross” (Matt. 16:24) in the Scripture sense at all.

 

A good illustration of what I mean would be the change that takes place in the feelings of a little girl when she becomes a woman. As a child she loves to climb trees and make mud pies; she hates to sit still and sew or learn long lessons or do hard work. But when the little girl becomes a woman, her feelings are reversed; she loves the things she once hated, and hates the things she once loved. The woman “takes up the cross” to her childish play; that is, she becomes dead to it and no longer finds any pleasure in it. She delights in the pursuits of maturity and leaves behind the pursuits of childhood, just as once she delighted in the pursuits of childhood and dreaded those of maturity.

 

There are a great many Christians who look at the Christian life as I in my childish ignorance looked at adult life; they think religion means to give up the things they love and to do the things they hate. They call this “taking up the cross” and actually think God enjoys their grudging service.