“The LORD your God is among you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will greatly delight in you. He will quiet you with his love. He will rejoice over you with loud singing.” Zephaniah 3:17
Heavenly Father, you know how much I love this passage, for you used it, quite literally, to raise my heart from death to life. You took me from believing the Gospel for others, to believing its exquisite riches and sweetness for myself, as well. I was more certain about life after death than I was thrilled about life before death. I was shut down in my shame and insecurities, but you got me onto the dance floor of your welcome, love, and delight. Thank you!
You taught me there are 100 more verses of lyrics to the Gospel (rich theology) than the 5 I knew. You turned up the volume on the music of the Gospel in my heart from a faint 2 to a heart-palpitating 11 (robust doxology). Do it again, Father. Refresh, restore, and renew me (and those praying with me today) to Gospel-sanity and a fresh experience of your unfiltered, undiluted, unleashed delight. There’s no shame in acknowledging heart drift, faith struggles, and spirit-weariness. There’s only foolishness in failing to do so.
Father, assure us all over again that the images in Zeph.3:17 (and scores of others passages just like it) aren’t just poetry, hyperbole, and metaphors. By your Holy Spirit make your current delight in us more real than the lies of the enemy, the disappointments we feel towards ourselves, the wrong expectations we’ve placed on others, and the flat-out general weariness we feel from living in this fallen world.
Abba, In the coming hours and days, quiet us with your love. Re-convince us you don’t love us to the degree we are like Christ, but to the degree you have hidden our lives in Jesus and have made his righteousness ours. Turn down the noise, the unbelief, and our people-pain, as you turn up the volume of your singing and rejoicing over us. Thank you gracious and generous Father. So Very Amen.