D0234

A sharing by Helen Chang for this song:

When I first came across the account of David’s plight in Psalm 40, I was greatly challenged as to how he managed not to complain about his distress but even managed to praise God! While there was much to learn from this Psalm, my attention was soon drawn to verse 8 where David delighted to do God’s will regardless of his circumstances. How incredible indeed!

This then turned my mind to the life of the Lord Jesus. In John 4:34, he expressed that the doing of God’s will is food to him. In John 8:29, Jesus’s attitude in life was always to do what is pleasing to God Yahweh. Then came the ultimate challenge in Hebrews 12:2. It showed how the Lord Jesus was able to endure the shameful suffering on the cross because he had the joy of foreseeing the outcome of how God’s will in saving mankind could be fulfilled!

From these few references alone, I began to realise that this delight and joy in doing God’s will is very different from the fleeting happiness or enthusiasm which I may have when doing God’s will in general. The acid test would come at times when I may be misunderstood, when I am shown by others that my ways may have been careless and that I have missed the mark, etc. Would I have the peace and the delight to entrust these to God and to be ready to be changed according to His will? After all, unless I am a person having a heart and attitudes according to His will (I Thess. 5:16-18), how can I truly be doing God’s will?

As I pondered more on the life of Christ, the more I realised that if I am to imitate Christ faithfully, then I must have an attitude of delighting to do God’s will. It’s not good enough for me just to obey because this is what I must do in order to remain as a child of God! The more I recount the abundant mercies of God Yahweh in my life, which is the great privilege of being His child, why would it not be a delight to do God’s will come what may? May God Yahweh grant me grace so as to live every day!