Giving God Pleasure

    When We talk about pleasing God, we often picture ourselves making a right choice. We might even picture Him saying, “Right. (Smile) Good job. Check. You’re hitting 85% here. Keep up the good work.  Next?”    Through the years, however, I have come to see God not at a distance with His clipboard, but ‘close up and personal,’ as the saying goes.

   As often happens, I was recently struck in a new way by a Scripture from Psalm 147. . It begins with “The Lord takes pleasure in...”.  I have long considered my desire not just to dutifully obey God, but to make Him happy...to cause Him to smile tenderly and with intimate joy, maybe even to cause Him to throw His Head back amd laugh.  It seems rather like watching someone open and excitedly rejoice in a gift you’ve given him. The recipient’s face lights and the crinkles around his eyes show far beyond a simple thank you that you have hit the mark in blessing him.

   Sometimes, though, I realize that I have pushed Him back into His clipboard stance, where I’m again just trying to do things right and not upset Him. I find myself there without quite realizing how I got there.  He certainly wasn’t the one who moved away. I know that. Our goal should certainly be to not offend or grieve His Spirit. Absolutely. But going beyond obedience to overtly pursuing creative ways to bless Him, to cause His his eyes to light up in pure delight...priceless.
 
   This has prompted me this morning to pursue every Scripture which refers to pleasing God. Certainly I have read and noted them here and there. However, I’ve never searched for them all at once.  Andrew Wommack has been teaching on Lessoms from David, which include much about his pleasing God, but also about his greatly displeasing Him. We tend to think of our actions pleasing and displeasing God, but always God brings us back to the heart behind our actions, as well.

   At any rate, I am putting on my Sherlock hat and going in search of all the ways to make God smile. I hope you’ll join me. You can add your comments to the post and help us mine the depths of the treasure that is God’s inspired Word to us...God-breathed and life-giving.  And let’s see how many full-bore smiles we get to see along the way.
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[By the way, if you use a computer, versus a phone, to open this blog at www.TennyandI.blogspot.com, you can see the archives of the other 3 years of posts, the navigation tools, and places to follow the blog, if you’re interested. Some have asked me how, since my posts don’t always show up on their Facebook feed.]. Julie