Delight in the Light- Amy Symmes

The word delight has the word light in it, so I believe that things of light will bring people delight. God is light. God will bring us the greatest delight. So what things of light bring God delight, that can also bring us delight as we search for these things and follow his example? Proverbs 15:8 says that “the prayer of the upright is his delight.” So God delights in the prayers of the honest. Praying to our Heavenly Father morning and night is a simple thing that we can do to bring much delight into our lives. It brings our Heavenly Father happiness to hear from us when we pray. He wants to hear our hopes, desires, troubles, and our gratitude for all that he does for us. So when we pray faithfully and in all honesty God will feel delight. Then we will not be able to escape feeling delighted ourselves because our souls truly yearn to make our father happy. We will be reaching a spiritual goal through prayer which is a key action to receiving joy.
Service is another key action to receiving joy. Susan W. Tanner said “When we delight to serve Him, our Father in Heaven delights to bless us.” Everyone enjoys blessings. Blessings are a gift upon condition. When we serve others, God cannot withhold his blessings from us. God loves giving unto us good things, so if we serve, he can give us good things, and then he feels delight. We then reap the benefits of it. Have you ever been told when you were in times of sorrow to forget yourself or your problems and go serve another? And have you done it? What was the result? Usually, it is that you feel so much better about your own situation even though you were helping someone else. This is because God blesses us in an oxymoronic way. It seems odd that by serving someone else, you can feel better about yourself but it really does happen. There is something about helping others that always brings delight to the giver, and the receiver. This is because it is a Christ-like action. And God looks upon it with delight.
One thing that God loved about Nephi was that his “heart delight[ed] in righteousness (2 Nephi 9:49).” When we make righteous decisions, like Nephi did, God is pleased. In any situation when we choose God’s way over Satan’s way, God will be so happy. Especially, if by doing so it makes our hearts delight in righteousness, just as choosing the right did for Nephi. There are many times in our lives where we are presented with hard decisions but because we are all given the light of Christ and the knowledge of good and evil, if we are in tune with this we can make righteous decisions. And when we make righteous decisions, we find delight in them because good consequences will follow for choosing righteously. And yet again, when we choose righteousness, God is pleased, and therefore we can feel his delight for our good choices and our hearts delight also.
In 2 Nephi 4:15, Nephi says, “For my soul delighteth in the scriptures.” If we follow Nephi’s example and the scriptures, in faith we can also feel delighted when we read them. The scriptures teach us about Christ. And knowing about Christ is the ultimate joy because he is our Savior, our redeemer, who has saved us from sin and death. By reading the scriptures we can internalize this truth and it will bring us joy as we come to know our savior through reading the pages of holy books. We will not be able to feel the delight that comes from scripture reading if we do not read them. So reading the scriptures regularly is key to feeling delight, joy, and happiness in our lives. It takes action, and habit to do it, but it will be well worth the effort in the end. And God will delight in the fact that you are reading his true and holy words, and following the great example of a prophet that he loves.
God loves to be merciful. In Micah 7:18 it says “he delights in mercy.” This statement rings true to my soul. At one time in my life I did some things that hurt my best friend deeply, to the core. My best friend was so disappointed in me for some bad decisions I had made that had directly affected him. He was sorrowful and angry but he was also merciful towards me. Instead of telling me he would not be my friend anymore, he decided we should go to the temple every day for a while in order to heal our broken relationship. So we went daily. And it was surely a miracle because our relationship was even stronger in the end. If my friend had not shown me mercy during the hard times, we would not have been friends today. Because my friend showed me mercy, we became even better friends as a result. And God definitely delights in good, strong friendships. I’m sure that God was pleased in this instance with my best friend as he showed me mercy.
Doing things that bring God delight like praying, serving, choosing righteousness, reading the scriptures and showing mercy will bring us true happiness. This is the greatest delight of all, to make our Father happy.

Works Cited:
1. Proverbs 15:8
2. Micah 7:18
3. 2 Nephi 4:15, 9:49
4. LDS.org talks