PSALM 119:35-36

Direct me in the path of your commands, for there I find delight. Turn my heart toward your statutes and not toward selfish gain.

TO PONDER

This morning on the news I saw reporting from Adelaide, coverage of the Adelaide Fringe Festival. This festival was a relatively new thing about 10 years ago when my family and I first moved to Australian Lutheran College for me to begin my pastoral studies. The fringe festival, is supposed to be a celebration of minority cultures from around the world and to the organisers credit, one of the matriarchs of the LCA who was known for how she 'spun a yarn' even did a stand up comedy gig once during the festival a few years back before she passed away. I guess now the Lutheran church is a fringe/minority culture so it fits the theme.

However the main attraction for the festival is called 'the garden of unearthly delights' and while I never attended it, the promotional material suggested that it really was just a vent to see things that decent people probably don't need to be seeing, and to drink and indulge the senses in almost any way imaginable.

Too often the world around us seeks to derail our walk as disciples of Jesus by appealing to our senses, appealing to those things that 'delight' us. Yet for the writer of today's psalm, the Word of God, His laws and commands were where he found delight. And why not, there is so much that is delightful about God's word and what he has revealed to us about himself in that word.

He is our Loving Heavenly Father, rich in mercy and abounding in steadfast love for those who love him and walk in his ways. Isn't that the kind of walk in the park of 'unearthly delights' that we should be looking for?

PRAYER: Lord help me to recognise and experience the delight that comes from walking with you and doing things your way. Amen

Today's devotion written by Mathew von Stanke, LifeWay Newcastle