Delight -- Andree Seu

"Delight is the most useless of things. It doesn't get the house clean or the bills paid. Useless - like rainbows. Like Beethoven's Ninth.

Delight covers a multitude of parenting shortcomings. You may be too strict or too lenient and still come out all right, if you delight in your children. They will know it, for delight cannot be hidden. It finds excuse to ooze all over the place. It seeks a getaway vacation with the beloved when it's not convenient. It asks different questions than duty. Duty says, 'I should.' Delight says, 'I want to.' Duty is efficient. Delight tends to anything but.

What is less efficient than the story of mankind? If it were about efficiency, God would have wiped the plate clean and commenced with more promising subjects. The Bible in its entirety is a love story, a tale of unquenchable delight -- His for us, finally ours for him. No sound rule of parenting is modeled in the sprint of an old man down the road to meet his prodigal. Only delight. No royal protocol is modeled in the dance of a half-naked king before his subjects and the Lord with all his might. Only delight. What is more useless than hymns?

'Let the mind for an instant consider the history of the Redeemer's love, and a thousand enchanting acts of affection will suggest themselves ... Our souls may well faint for joy ... for our loving benefactor Jesus Christ our Lord, whose love is wonderful, passing the love of women' (C.H. Spurgeon)."

-- Andree Seu, We Shall Have Spring Again