Jon Acuff on "Taking God Seriously"

I love my "Stuff Christians Like" daily calendar. It is a daily dose of Jon Acuff's humorous (and often wise) observations on the church and Christian life.

The "Serious Wednesday" post from May 9th was a fresh perspective that I really needed to hear. Here's what he had to say:

"Someone once accused me of not taking God seriously enough, but that’s never really been my struggle. All my life I have been awash in the seriousness of God. When you enter His court, you have serious issues and serious discussions. Seeing God as someone who laughs with me and kids with me and rolls down hills of grass with me has been a bigger challenge. Believing that it gives Him joy to see me writing, or playing Frisbee, or doing a million other thinks, has been hard. That’s changing, though. In the last few years, He has been showing me that He is more flowers than thistles, more laughter than wrath, more open hand than closed fist. Is He serious?  Without a doubt. Do I still feel like it’s a big deal to come into His court?  Certainly, only now I think it’s okay to arrive there by water slide."

I love this. It is a reminder that our God is serious, holy, and deserves every bit of our worship. But He is also for our greatest joy. He loves us very deeply. If we approach Him with fear and trembling but not with hopeful anticipation of crawling into his lap, then we are out of balance in our view of Him.

Mike Yaconelli describes it as "dangerous wonder."

Max Lucado suggested in a book from years ago that we should listen for the "applause of heaven."

Zephaniah 3:17 puts it this way: "The LORD your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing.”

God takes great delight in you. Believe that, because it's true. When you are confident that God takes delight in you, even to the point of singing over you, it sure makes it a lot easier to delight in Him.

An action step for today: Make sure that your kids are learning that this is the true nature of God. He's not mad at them...He delights in them, just as a loving, proud parent does.