“Take delight in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.” –Psalm 37:4
I taught this verse to my girls tonight in English class. I have six high-school Thai girls that I teach English to every evening. They are wonderful. I love their smiles, their giggles as they try to pronounce new words in a new language, their chatter back and forth in Thai, their eagerness to shout out the words when I ask them to repeat what I say or answer questions.
Tonight as we talked about what it meant to delight in the Lord, I realized how blessed I am to be doing that so much this month. This month, delighting in the Lord for me looks like stepping up into the role of teacher once again and reminding myself what a joy it is for me to use this passion God has given me. Delighting in God looks like seeing 14, 15, and 16 year old boys triumphing over their dark pasts and now teaching others what they know from the Word for one of the first times in their lives; it’s seeing those boys being discipled so they can become nation-changers themselves. It means singing praises along with teenager-led worship bands, and praying for young girls in a drug rehabilitation prison, and encouraging a group of men who, though they are still imprisoned in the earthly sense, have found freedom in Christ. Delighting in the Lord has meant reading a psalm every morning and every night to start and end my day with praises to God and learning new Thai phrases so that I can have a few words to start conversations with the woman who sells iced coffee behind our complex or the taxi-cab driver or a vendor in the market.
Just as the psalm says, by delighting in the Lord and thanking Him for all of these things this month, I have experienced so much joy and peace: desires of my heart. My ultimate desire is to know God more, and I feel this environment is so conducive to that desire. I have felt such refreshment this month from the Lord and it is clearly affecting my attitude as I serve.
On top of that, we are having a blast exploring different areas, hanging out with our translator and with the staff at Abba House, and finding new places to buy iced-coffee or Thai tea. Tonight my team went to the night market and had so much fun! People were letting off lanterns to float away in the sky, shooting off fireworks, and selling all kinds of odds and ends. My teammate was even able to get a foot-cleaning thanks to a certain type of fish that eats dead skin off of the body. Getting off site to relax a little after spending all week lesson-planning was such a treat.
Tomorrow for our “off day”, we are going to the elephant camp and I will get to not only see elephants, but ride one! The tour even includes lunch and floating down a lazy river on a bamboo raft. There is no doubt we will have fun and enjoy the relaxation and new experience. Look for pictures on facebook!
