How Delightful!

As I prayed tonight, God was talking about friendship. Which is such an honor, if you think about it. The God who created the heavens and earth wants to be your friend. Like, your bestie. He wants to swap secrets with you, stay up late talking, share jokes, work alongside you, laugh with you, cry with you. The best part is, a good friendship is effortless. Well, it takes some work and intention, but deep friendships that come from when you really truly click with someone happen when you both stop trying to make the other like you. When you’re each just yourself and the other loves you for it. That’s all God wants from us. For us to just be ourselves with Him so He can love us as we are. And for us to appreciate Him. Every part of Him. The deep, the serious, the beautiful, the funny, the quirky. (Look at a platypus and tell me God isn’t quirky.)

In honor of that, can we all just take a moment to appreciate how DELIGHTFUL our God is? I love Him for banyan trees, because they grow from the sky down into the ground. They literally grow upside down. Pretty sure God did that just because He could. I love Him for platypuses, because they are weird, and I think God likes to throw monkey wrenches into all our attempts to categorize and classify His creation. I love Him for penguins, because they are the most perfect, adorable, obnoxiously cute creatures in existence. They just waddle around being cute and slide on their bellies and have adorable fluffy babies and bring each other pebbles as tokens of affection! I could die from the cute! And also they’re pretty bomb and can dive to over 1850 feet…extreme diving skills.

I love Him for making nature mesmerizing. You can stare at a fire for hours and never get bored. You can stare at the ocean and never get bored. With waves or without – if there are waves, it’s fun to watch them crash and feel the concussion and get sprayed by the big ones, if not, the zillion colors and reflections and little ripples can still keep you busy forever. Stick your head UNDER the water and you can actually float around watching life happen right in front of you and be entertained ALL DAY. (If you haven’t tried snorkeling, TRY SNORKELING. You won’t regret it. But use ear plugs.) You can watch snow fall or a thunderstorm or wind in the grass or fireflies or the stars and be endlessly entertained.

I love Him for how life feels. For the way it feels to have a wave wash the sand out from under your feet. For the feel of a cool breeze on a hot day. For that first sip of cold water when you’re really thirsty. (Is ANYTHING better than that? I think not.) I love sound. I love that He created music. He created ears so that WE CAN TRANSLATE TINY AIR PRESSURE FLUCTUATIONS INTO SYMPHONIES INSIDE OUR HEADS. Whaaat???? I love how snow muffles sound and there’s almost a tangible stillness when you stand alone and watch the snow fall. I love every. Single. Sound that water makes. Whether it’s a waterfall, rain on the roof, hot water running through pipes (that one’s weird, I know…goes back to my childhood), a river, a brook,  water pouring into a glass…doesn’t matter.

And I love how He made us capable of not only sensing all these things, but FEELING them. Reacting to them. Emotions amaze me. I can’t understand how ANYONE could look at emotions, at how our brain works, and not think, “Yup. God is real. No other explanation.” The fact that I can see a tiny gecko and have this weird tickly feeling due to it’s cuteness (what is that emotion called??) is so very odd. And so very delightful. And cozyness! That deep, profound sense of peace, comfort, and satisfaction that comes from being perfectly safe and comfortable and happy. Ahhh! There’s nothing better. Why did He give us that? Just because He loves us and wants us to be able to fully appreciate and enjoy our rest, probably. That would be like Him. I love that He gave us humor. How  sad would life be if we couldn’t laugh? But we can! All this…just evidence of how much He loves us.

Why would this amazing, breathtaking, awesome (in the original sense of the word) God want to be friends with me? Man, David had it right in Psalm 8 when he asked, “What is man that you are mindful of him?” I don’t know. There is just no logical reason for such a big God to set His affection so fully on such small creatures. But He has, so I suppose I’ll stop asking questions and just be really, really grateful. Lots of love, joy, and peace today as you contemplate your Father and Friend.