Heart's Delight

The Beauty of Love in Relationships and the All-Satisfying Love of God

There are burned into my memory certain images from adolescence that become increasingly more treasured as the years pass by. Two of these include my grandmothers.

“Downhill Gram,” my dad’s mom, lived near the railroad tracks just ‘down the hill’ from my parents’ house and I would often walk or ride my bike to visit her. Usually unannounced, I’d run up the front porch steps, ring the doorbell, and wait for her to peer out from behind the curtain. Upon seeing me, any anxiety over an unexpected caller would disappear and Gram’s face would light up with delight. She’d welcome me in and get right to work fixing us a snack of Little Debbies and milk while I prattled on about the goings on of my exciting little life.

“Uphill Gram,” my mom’s mom, lived ‘up the hill’ a bit farther away, but once I could drive, I made a habit of visiting her and Pap and we’d sit and talk for hours. She’d often call me and say, “Sess, I miss you! Come up for dinner!” and I’d gladly accept the invitation. I’d pull into the driveway and wave to my pap mowing the grass or weeding his garden and run up the steps (two at a time) to the deck and open the patio door which always seemed to be unlocked—waiting for me. “Gram?” I’d call. “In here, honey,” she’d call back. And I’d make my way to the family room where she was lying on a heating pad for her bad back. Upon seeing me, she’d reach out a hand, her face lighting up with delight. “Gram, I have great news!” I’d exclaim. “Tell me!” she’d say. And I’d prattle on about the goings on of my exciting little life.

Oh, how I miss them.

The way each of these women delighted in me stamped love on my heart in such a way as to leave me forever changed. For I did nothing to earn their love but exist and be called theirs.

The mutual joy I felt upon seeing their ‘lit up’ faces cemented our bond.

It’s perhaps because of the joy-filled love these women poured into me that I delight in my children today and can’t help but ‘light up’ whenever I see them. I want to write the same kind of love on their hearts that my grandmothers wrote on mine.

A former pastor hung up someone’s rendition of Jesus in the midst of a hearty laugh near the church entrance. His head was thrown back with squished up eyes and wide, happy mouth. Something had really amused Him! Some of the older congregants were bothered by it. Do you ever imagine the Lord laughing? Or is religion too serious a thing for such mirth? It makes me happy to think of our Lord laughing with pure pleasure. I would walk past it and think, ‘I wonder what He’s laughing about?’
I like to laugh, too, and wanted ‘in’ on the fun.

Sometimes I laugh too hard at a joke my teenager said to which he replies, “It really wasn’t that funny, Mom.” I shake my head and say with beaming eyes, “I just love you.” Other times, when my youngest is telling me about a boss in a video game, I listen, but mostly I’m trying to absorb all the details of his young, beautiful face in an attempt to etch them into my memory.

And I wonder if this ‘joy-filled love’ isn’t some small glimpse of how our Heavenly Father delights in us delighting in Him.

I heard a wonderfully simple, but deeply rich story once about this kind of mutual adoration that went something like this: A priest noticed an elderly man coming and sitting in a pew who spent a long time just looking at Jesus on the cross. Curious, he finally asked the man what he was doing or saying to God all those hours. The man said, “I look at Him and He looks at me and we just love each other.”

I’ve wasted a lot of my years searching for that kind of love. It was in Jesus all the while. My 15-year-old has been working through feelings of meaninglessness and emptiness in the world. He’s been most unhappy. We were driving home together not too long ago talking about his ‘need for more structure.’ (His idea, not mine!) He said, “Mum, I think I need more structure in my life. I just drift and don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing.”

Something like lightning struck my mind and I replied, “I remember feeling like you do. I felt so empty inside and couldn’t figure out what was missing. I chased achievement, boys, popularity. But nothing filled the void. It wasn’t until I was 30 years old—thirty years old!—that I finally started reading the Bible. And that changed everything. The pieces finally started falling into place. God filled the void. And I finally found real joy. Let’s start reading the Bible together—every day.”

And he said ‘okay.’

Psalm 1 says that the man who delights in the law of the Lord is the happy man, the blessed man. The one who delights himself in the Lord will receive the desires of his heart, says Psalm 37.

“We will never find true happiness until we learn to think properly,” teaches Alistair Begg. “Whatever shapes our thinking, shapes our lives. Therefore, seeking to live under the smile of God, we will not embrace the thought patterns of the godless world.”

In one of my favorite psalms, 27, David says “one thing I ask of the Lord, one thing I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord.”

What our restless, empty hearts truly desire—truly need—is the Lord. To gaze upon His beauty. To marvel and wonder at His infinite splendor. To adore and praise His magnificent glory. And when we delight in Him, He will give us the desires of our hearts—more of Himself.

John Piper writes, “The climax of God’s happiness is the delight He takes in the echoes of His excellence in the praises of His people.”¹

“In your presence, Lord, there is fullness of joy.” (Ps 16) Filled to the brim and overflowing with joy!

“And if our Father’s heart is full of deep and unshakable happiness, we may be sure that when we seek our happiness in Him, we will not find Him “out of sorts” when we come. We will not find a frustrated, gloomy, irritable Father who wants to be left alone, but a Father whose heart is so full of joy that it spills over onto all those who [thirst for Him].”²

Our souls thirst for Him. And so deep is this need, nothing of the physical earth can satisfy it. He bids us, “Come and talk to me—seek my face.” (Ps 27) Let us earnestly seek our heart’s desire, and as we gaze at Him and He looks upon us, may our faces radiate that which pours forth abundantly from satisfied hearts—delight in our Beloved.

Spurgeon describes how magnificent and “heart-cheering” it is to be an object of God’s joy:

“In what strong language He expresses His delight in His people! Who could have conceived of the Eternal One bursting into a song? Yet it is written, “He will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.” As He looked upon the world He had made, He said, “It is very good;” but when He looked on those who are the purchase of Jesus’ blood, His own chosen ones, it seemed as if the great heart of the Infinite could restrain itself no longer but overflowed in divine exclamations of joy.”³

By loving me simply for being theirs, my grandmothers—perhaps unknowingly—reflected a glimmer of the Father’s love. Our love for each other was strong and real and good, but it was only a foretaste of Perfect Love and Perfect Joy.

When we desire to “gaze upon the beauty of the Lord” and find delight in who He is, it is then our hearts will find the kind of belonging, rest, and joy that lasts an eternity.

“May the Living God, who is the portion and rest of the saints,
make these our carnal minds so spiritual, and our earthly hearts so heavenly,
that loving Him, and delighting in Him,
may be the work of our lives.” —Puritan, Richard Baxter

1. John Piper. Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist. Multnomah Books, 2011. pg. 46

2. Ibid. pg. 41

3. Charles Spurgeon. Morning and Evening. “Morning September 21.” Barbour Books: 2018.