The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.
Zephaniah 3:17
I love this scripture and have a hard time believing it all at the same time. I mean I get that God is with me and certainly believe that he is mighty to save. Those I don't even have to think twice about! I can even wrap my head around Him delighting in us, I can picture him smiling down when we are singing praise songs, or when we are doing something particularly "holy". But the reality is it isn't just then, He has made us exactly who we are and we bring Him joy just because. We are His and He is ours, and just like I will watch my girls just being (playing together, enjoying an ice cream, giggling over a joke, amazed by a new discovery), God takes those same pleasures in us. In fact, the very next thing the scripture tells us is that he will quiet you with His love. Those days we are beyond ourselves, the days we work ourselves into a tizzy, the days we feel alone and misunderstood . . . . .His love is enough. Just like a mommy's hug is enough for the bumped knee, His love is enough to quiet us.
It is this last part I find almost unbelievable, He will rejoice over you with singing. What??? No way. I cannot even wrap my mind around the fact that the Lord of Lords, Creator of the Universe could ever, ever, rejoice over me with singing. Some other translations say with "shouts of joy". So, God is in the bleachers cheering me on? He is watching me like a dad at a soccer game, shouting words of encouragement and celebrating my victories? Wow, I can almost hear it, "Keep your eyes on the ball Heather, you can do this", "Watch his elbow, he is playing dirty", "Pick yourself up, your not outta this game!" And shouts of pure joy when a battle is won, His word is shared,or a temptation avoided. Can you imagine the celebrations of a life lived for Christ when we arrive in heaven? Talk about bleacher clearing, gatoraide dumping, champagne popping! That will be a celebration worth a lifetime of training, sacrifice, skinned knees, and play books memorized; to stand before the ultimate soccer dad and hear, "Well done my good and faithful one."
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