God Delights In You
“The Lord takes delight in his people.”
Psalm 149:4a
Imagine someone saying to you, “You’re special” or “You are a very good person” or something along those lines, how do you think you’d feel? I think I’d feel pretty happy. Deep down I think we all want to be loved, wanted, chosen, and desired. And sometimes we may look in all the wrong places, including people, to have this need met. We want to be so accepted and wanted that we become someone we are not. Yet we do not see that the person who they have come to like is really not our most authentic self. So, when all is said and done, they really haven’t accepted me. We may turn to other extreme means to find this acceptance, all falling short because whatever we may have come to receive lasts only a few moments.
While we try to look for this love and affirmation from other people, places, and things, there has been Someone who has always loved us and affirmed us — God. God delights in us. In all our imperfections, sinfulness, weaknesses, strengths — everything, the good, the bad, and the ugly, God chooses us, accepts us, pursues us, and loves us. God loves us for who we are. Brothers and sisters, we are created in God’s image and likeness. Even when buried under the layers of filth and sin, God sees our truest self — His beloved sons and daughters, the ones in whom He delights.
Today we celebrate St. Damien of Molokai, a priest who spent the last part of his life ministering to the outcast of society on an isolated island — lepers. No one wanted to be near them because this skin disease was thought to be highly contagious. Yet Fr. Damien chose to go and minister to them. I believe that Fr. Damien chose to go close to the lepers because he knew and believed that God first chose Him and drew him close to Himself. It was in his chosenness that Fr. Damien came to choose the outcasts of society. God delights in the outcasts of society. God delights in you and in me. What is the leprosy that is eating away at us? Let God enter into it and bring healing. God delights in you.
