Someone needs to hear this today.

Please know it…God loves to make you smile!

He loves you.

A lot.

A lot a lot!!!

“Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations.” –Isaiah 42:1

Did you know that God Himself delights?

Isaiah 42:1 says He does.

God delights.

Delights!

Delight is a powerful emotion.

It’s an emotion of ecstatic happiness or joy directed towards something outside one’s self that in turn fuels ecstatic happiness or joy within one’s self as well.

It’s expressed outwardly and experienced internally.

Consequently, because of the duality of how a person feels this emotion both inwardly and outwardly, it’s an intensified version of anything resembling happiness, joy or pleasure. Merriam Webster’s dictionary defines delight as “a high degree of gratification or extreme satisfaction.”

Isaiah using this word to describe God’s emotion towards His Son is incredible to me. It tells us how deeply God loves.

I forget often…

How deeply God loves.

It’s easy to believe God is great.

It’s easy to believe God is powerful.

It’s easy to believe God is good too.

But at times, I struggle to believe that God loves me or that He cares about me.

Sometimes I just don’t feel like God delights in me.

I don’t feel like He cares about me.

I don’t feel like His love is enough to actually make me feel loved.

Yet slowly… these lies are being broken in my mind.

The past several days, I’ve wanted to write and felt stuck… My heart feels so full and with so much I didn’t quite know where to start. I was talking to the Lord about things and He reminded me of something I haven’t really grasped before…

God said, Natalie, I love to make you smile.

I love to make you smile.

Wow…

You love to make me smile, Lord? I asked.

Hmmm… I started to think about all that God has done to make me smile. Every moment of joy. All the things I never expect. Any reason I ever have to smile.

Wow, You do, don’t You!? Why didn’t I ever see this before?

Why did I doubt You cared for me?

I think the devil likes to make us forget things…

The devil likes to make us forget all the many reasons we have to believe God loves us, to believe God cares for us, to believe God delights in us, to believe God wants to bless us, to believe God loves to see us happy…the devil doesn’t like for us to believe any of that…so he tries to get us confused and mad at God…

…all the while, God is doing everything He can to woo us and show us how much He loves us.

So I want to tell you that God loves to make you smile.

God loves to bless you.

It makes Him happy to get to do that for you, just as it makes you happy to get to give to the person you love.

“Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” says Matthew 7:9-11.

For anyone who is struggling to believe this, I want you to know that God really is a loving God who cares about you.

God cares about your heart.

God cares about you interests.

God cares about your passions.

God cares about your desires.

Too often in Christianity, we think that denying ourselves happiness makes us better Christians.

But that’s not what God wants!

If we go back to Isaiah 42:1, the verse indicates that God Himself delights.

Thus, since we are made in His image, it’s only natural that we should delight too.

Think about the things that you delight in… certain people, hobbies, nature, animals, friends, family…

That’s natural…

You delighting in those things is natural just like God delighting in His Son and His people is natural.

God delights.

You delight.

I delight.

All because of love.

Love makes it possible than you and I can delight.

God’s love makes it possible.

“So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him,” says 1 John 4:16.

“Yahweh your God is among you, a warrior who saves. He will rejoice over you with gladness. He will bring you quietness with His love. He will delight in you with shouts of joy,” says Zephaniah 3:17.

“I will heal their waywardness and love them freely, for my anger has turned away from them. I will be like the dew to Israel; he will blossom like a lily. Like a cedar of Lebanon he will send down his roots,” says Hosea 14:4-5.

“See what kind of love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are,” says 1 John 3:1.

God loves you!

A lot!

He wants to make you smile.

Because He loves you.

And He smiles on you too.

Because He loves you.

I believe it and by gosh I’m declaring in Jesus’ name that the devil have no more power in our lives to make us believe that God doesn’t care about us!

I’ve been down that road and I’m not going back!

May we declare God is love and so delight in the life He has given us!

For anyone who is struggling to believe God loves you, I know how you feel.

Please know that God DOES LOVE YOU!

Please know it!

“O Lord, you hear the desire of the afflicted;
you will strengthen their heart; you will incline your ear
to do justice to the fatherless and the oppressed,
so that man who is of the earth may strike terror no more.” –Psalm 10:17-18

As David ends this psalm, he reaffirms his trust in the Lord.

He starts off in confusion and uncertainty in the beginning verses as he wonders where God is at. David probably assumed that God didn’t care about him since he writes that God seemed far away. But what I love about David is that he always goes to God when He’s burdened with emotions. And as he closes this psalm, he’s taken times to process his feelings and remember that God is still faithful.

Despite his uncertainty, David still has a reason to smile.

May we learn from his example.

The devil would love nothing more than to make you think God doesn’t care about you. Because then, you will withdraw from the Lord and then you will lose your strength to fight. The enemy will attack you and it will get worse and worse. But the good news is… God is fighting for you, and eventually, He will rescue you and bring you back to Himself. He won’t let you remain in a place of disbelief and discouragement forever. He will come and do what it takes to show you just how much He cares about you! Pray! Pray! Pray! Even when you doubt God’s heart for you…pray still…talk to God about how you are feeling, and tell Him that you need Him to show you His love…He will. He will show you. He will remind you how much He loves you. It takes time. But Jesus always comes through.

Know I am praying for you as I ask the Lord to rescue every single person who may be wrestling with despair, anxiety, disbelief, discouragement…The Lord is not limited and He can rescue every single person. devil, we declare you powerless in Jesus’ name! Powerless! Get the heck out of here! For the Lord our God, Jesus Christ is stronger!

May we believe that God really does love us and because of this, loves to make us smile! May we cherish the privilege to delight and be delighted in.

I pray that you will know how wild and unimaginable Christ’s love is for you and that He is not looking to make you hurt or experience pain. In suffering, we draw nearer to Christ as we fellowship with His sufferings and we learn how to comfort others. And it means that much more to experience all the delightful moments in which God makes us smile. Thank you, Jesus for loving us.

“Clap your hands, all peoples!
Shout to God with loud songs of joy!
For the Lord, the Most High, is to be feared,
a great King over all the earth.” 

-Psalm 47:1-2 –

“First and Only” by Elevation Worship