I was recently spending time in worship and I was singing songs to the Lord. I started to sing and play “Where I Belong” by Cory Asbury.
The bridge of that song says this.
“I am my beloved’s and he is mine
So come into your garden and
Take delight in me
Take delight in me
Delight in me, delight in me
Delight in me, delight in me”
God knows that I delight in Him. But during this moment I felt God asking me if I would let Him take delight in me. At first, I had to stop and ask God if this was ok, it felt a little weird. “Is it okay for me to ask You to take delight in me?”
I heard the Father say back to me “Why wouldn’t I want to delight in my bride?”
So I let Him into this place and asked Him to show me how He delights in me. And it happened, I experienced an intimate time with God where I just allowed Him permission to take delight in me. It was so powerful.
And it made me realize a couple things.
First off, I had to let God into this space. It wasn’t a place He would ever force Himself into. I had to accept this invitation. I could have said no, and let this lesser view of myself (even if pieces of it was subconscious) hold back a greater revelation of God’s Love.
Secondly I realized this is something that has held me back from being able to love Him fully. Because I can never love Him fully until I let Him Love me fully. I can never express or experience this Love that is beyond myself until I have recieved it myself.
Then I felt the Lord showing me an example of this. He started to show to me the example of a relationship. Letting someone take delight in you is a vulnerable place to put yourself. But its the only way a relationship can thrive, if you cannot recieve deeper love, you can never give it.
(This thought can be especially uncomfortable if you’ve never seen this side of the Father. But the Word tells us that He delights in us! (Isaiah 65:18-19, Psalm 147:11;149:4 Proverbs 3:12;11:20;12:22, Luke 15:11-32))
Can you imagine a wife who wouldn’t let her husband delight in her?
Now think about this: What if at the same time that bride was denying her husband, she was trying to take delight in her husband?
Does this sound familiar? It does to me.
Imagine that this bride was trying to make it work, but something kept it from being real. In the end she realized that this was never “acting humbly”. She was tearing herself down, calling herself unworthy, calling herself “a sinner”, and at the same time trying to tell her husband how great he is.
Sound familiar? It does to me.
God has been gently showing me that in order to love God intimately, you have to be Loved by Him intimately. You cannot return a Love that you have not received. You cannot truly delight in God until you’ve let Him take delight in you. Oddly enough, if we let Him Love us and delight in us, it equips us to love Him back more powerfully than before.
Then God really showed me what this ultimately looks like for eternity. And it’s one of the most powerful images I’ve ever recieved from Him.
He took me to this scene in Revelation 4.
“the twenty-four elders fall down before Him who sits on the throne, and they worship Him who lives forever and ever; and they throw down their crowns before the throne, saying, ‘Worthy are You, our Lord and God, to receive the glory and the honor and the power; for You created all things, and because of Your will they exist, and were created and brought into being.'” -Revelation 4:10-11
God began to reveal something to me. How do the elders cast down their crowns continually before God? How do the crowns get back on their heads to cast them down again?
Would they pick them back up?
Well think about this.
Do you think that if you were standing before the Majesty of God that you would have the nerve to put that crown back on your head?
The only explanation is that God puts the crowns back on the Elders head’s so they can throw them back down again.
Take that in for a second.
The only explanation is that God puts the crowns back on the Elders head’s so they can throw them back down again.
He longs to bestow these crowns to His children, He delights in us. And in return, we get to lay everything at His feet again and experience a deeper Love like we never have before.
Can you imagine being in The Throneroom?! Imagine that you throw down your crown before Him! “Father I choose You! You alone are King!”
Then He will set it back upon your head and whisper in your ear “I chose you from the beginning.”
You’ll throw down your crown again, maybe even dance before Him! “Abba! I’ll sing for you the most excellent of songs! I’ll dance with all my might before you! My very bones will cry out to You!”
“My Child, I’ve been singing and dancing over you before time was born.” As He restores your crown.
If you can still stand at this point, you’ll throw down your crown again “God, You’re worth it all! You’re my everything!”
The Father will grab it again “You are my Beloved, my child that I’ve yearned to take beneath the shelter of my wings!”
You could lay prostrate before Him and set your crown at his feet saying “King, it’s my honor to lay down at Your feet. To pour out my life as a drink offering to Your Name.”
He would still respond as He gently restores His gift “I gave my Life so that all that I have could be yours.”
Let Him take delight in you today. Ask Him, He wants to tell you so badly how He Loves you. And then, you get to turn around and throw your crown back at Him and tell Him how Good He is.
Thank you for reading and supporting me! I still have a bit to go financially for this next round with M Squad and I would love your help! I can’t wait to go give away to this squad all I’ve learned over this past year and a half with the Word Race. Please keep M Squad and myself in your prayers as we get ready to Launch in about one month! I love you all!
