Episode #170 Experience the Parental Delight of Your Good Father – Know You from God’s Point of View

Hey friends, it's Jen and welcome to Good God Talks. I love engaging in these moments with you as we go to our good God, and we engage in conversations with him. And the focus of today's episode is really asking God to talk with us about ways that he is proud of us. Now that might give you pause in and of itself, but the type of pride I'm talking about is a parental delight.

The way that we might look at young kids in our family and be enthralled with them or delighted by what they do or say or be proud of them doing hard things and overcoming obstacles and taking risks. We feel that internal delight when we look at them, and our good father delights in us too.

And sometimes that delight is simply because of how we view him.

I'm going to read a passage for us from Psalm 147:7-11 and it says,

“Sing to the Lord with grateful praise; make music to our God on the harp. He covers the sky with clouds; he supplies the earth with rain and makes grass grow on the hills. He provides food for the cattle and for the young ravens when they call. His pleasure is not in the strength of the horse, nor his delight in the legs of the warrior; the Lord delights in those who fear him, who put their hope in his unfailing love.” Psalm 147:7-11 NIV

I love this passage because we are those that can be strong in the Lord. We are those who can take action to partner with him and what he's doing in the world—and we'll look at a passage like that in a minute—but God also delights simply in our trust in him.

He says, hey, I'm the one who provides for you. I'm the one who causes things to grow. I'm the one who sustains life. My pleasure isn't dependent on how strong you are or how much of a warrior that you are.

Scripture tells us that God delights in those who fear Him, who put their hope in Him, not in themselves. Simply by recognizing our need for God, our reliance on Him, and the fact that He sustains our lives, gives God delight. He also invites us to participate in what He's doing.

There's a parable that's told in Matthew chapter 25 about a master who goes on a trip, and he entrusts to his servants different amounts of money. He gave one servant five bags, he gave another servant two bags, and he gave a third servant one bag. And it tells us in Matthew 25:16, the man who had received five bags of gold went at once and put his money to work and gained five bags more. Then I'll skip down to verse 21. So the master has returned, and his servants are giving him an account of what they did with what the master had entrusted to him. And in verse 21, it says

“His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’” (Matthew 25:21)

And I selected these two different passages of scripture today, because God has that delight in us over a variety of things, including how we hope in him and trust him for what he's going to do and, and how he sustains life and for his ability to make things prosper.

And also, he has delight in how we are wise stewards with what he has entrusted to us, that we get to partner with him in his work. And he's delighted when we do so.

We're not putting limits on what God wants to talk with us about today. We're just going to ask him, inspired by these passages of scripture, to talk with us more about this topic. And here's our question:

God, will you share with me a moment that you were proud of me?

And when God prompts something for you, keep talking with Him about it.

Have a good talk.

And if you've been encouraged by this content, please share it with a friend and help them grow in their conversational relationship with God too!

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