March 1, 2025 • 49 mins
You were created for delight. But somewhere in the busyness and relentless motion of life, you’ve lost that. You’re burdened, worried, broken, and burned out. If that’s you, don’t miss this Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman. Author and speaker, Asheritah Ciuciu wants to help you find rhythms to restore joy and delight. What is robbing you of abundant life? Don’t miss Building Relationships with Gary Chapman.
Featured resource: DELIGHTING IN JESUS: RHYTHMS TO RESTORE JOY WHEN YOU FEEL BURDENED, BROKEN, OR BURNED-OUT
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Episode Transcript
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S1 (00:02):
If you feel like you're on a spiritual hamster wheel
trying to do enough to make God happy. Don't miss
today's Building Relationships with Doctor Gary Chapman.
S2 (00:13):
Maybe he's inviting you to lean into that one primary
way that he wants to express his delight toward you.
Maybe it's time for more walks outside, or it's time
to really dig into Scripture. That might be God's invitation
to delight for you today.
S1 (00:31):
Welcome to building relationships with Doctor Gary Chapman, author of
the New York Times best seller The Five Love Languages. Today,
author and speaker Ashrita ChuChu is back with some help.
For anyone who's burdened, broken, or burned out.
S3 (00:46):
She's asking an important question what if we've gotten the
spiritual disciplines wrong? What if our growth and maturity come
not from perfecting our quiet time, but really in delighting
in the perfect love of the father for you and me.
Acereda develops that in the new book. She's titled Delighting
in Jesus Rhythms to restore joy when you feel burdened, broken,
(01:09):
or burned out. Is that how you feel today? It's
our featured resource at Building Relationships, us and Gary. I
don't think we've ever talked about this. Have you ever
gone through that struggle of trying to measure up spiritually,
or falling into the performance trap with God?
S4 (01:26):
You know, Chris, I think in the early days when
I was first introduced to the daily quiet time, you know,
I kind of saw it as I have to do
this every day, you know, in order for God to
be with me. ET cetera. ET cetera. But that's been
a long time ago. It's still a very active part
of my life, but I'm not allowing the fact that
(01:49):
I miss a morning because I have to catch an
early flight. You know, I just say, hey, God, let's
talk on the plane. You know, and let's talk as
we drive to the airport. So. Yeah. But I understand.
I understand that concept. And I'm really glad we're going
to be discussing this today.
S3 (02:04):
Me too. Let me reintroduce our guest. She's a best
selling author of ten books. National retreat speaker teaches the
Bible on YouTube. Ashreeta ChuChu grew up as a missionary
kid in Romania. She married her high school sweetheart, Flavio,
and they have three children. Live in Northeast Ohio. Her
latest is our featured resource at Building Relationships US. It's
(02:28):
titled Delighting in Jesus Rhythms to restore joy when you
feel burdened, broken, or burned out. Again, go to building relationships.us.
S4 (02:38):
Well, Ashreeta, welcome back to Building Relationships.
S2 (02:41):
Thank you so much for having me back on. It's
my joy to be here.
S4 (02:45):
I don't think we've ever talked about your name. So
let's start there. What does that name mean? Ashreeta?
S2 (02:54):
Sure. My name is actually made up. My father made
it up. It's Hebrew for God gives me happiness. And
that's just been a blessing on my life since I
was a little girl, that I would grow up to
learn that God is my happiness.
S4 (03:11):
Wow. I like that. Many Christians feel guilty about not
reading the Bible or praying enough. But you believe that
this view of spiritual disciplines is actually anti-Christian? Can you
explain that?
S2 (03:27):
Yeah, this view of reading my Bible or praying every
day kind of checklist spiritual mentality is based in performance,
in wanting to make sure that we measure up to
some level of what God expects of us or, um,
kind of reaching that super Christian level of I read
the Bible through a year, or I spend an hour, um,
(03:50):
studying my Bible and praying, and that is rooted in
a desire to perform, to reach a certain level of
I don't want to say maturity as much as I'm
doing it right. And when Jesus was on the cross,
he achieved everything that is needed to be made right
(04:12):
with God. It is Jesus's sacrifice plus nothing else. That
is why he said it is finished. So whenever we
try to add to Jesus's sacrifice through our our good deeds,
through even reading the Bible or going to church, there's
this sneaky deception that can sneak in where we think
(04:33):
we need to do something to make God happy with us.
But if we belong to Christ, when God looks at us,
he sees the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ. There's nothing
else we can do to add to that. So reading
our Bible and praying and going to church and fasting
and sharing the gospel with our neighbors or friends or coworkers.
(04:56):
Those are all things that we do out of the
overflow of what Jesus has accomplished, not to add to it.
S4 (05:04):
Yeah. So it seems to me that what you're advocating
is a real relationship with God based on loving acceptance,
rather than a formula that's based on performance. Is that right?
S2 (05:19):
Yeah. That's it exactly. I think what God invites us
into with these practices is to nurture our friendship with Jesus,
to receive his delight in us and respond to him
with delight. And so reading our Bible doesn't have to
be a chore anymore. It doesn't have to be boring
(05:40):
when we get to Leviticus. I mean, they'll still be
challenging sections. We still need to do the hard work
of showing up and and reading. But we have a helper.
Jesus says, I'm not going to leave you by yourself.
I'm going to send the counselor and he will lead
you in all truth. So when we sit down with
Leviticus and we're like, what's with the blood? What's with
(06:03):
the sacrifices? What's with I don't understand. We can ask
God's Spirit, would you open my eyes? Would you help
me to see Jesus here? Would you give me a
hunger and a thirst to get to know you more?
And once you see Jesus in Leviticus, it just unlocks
(06:23):
a world of understanding of who he is and what
he's done for us. It's such a fun adventure.
S4 (06:29):
Yeah. So the reading of the scriptures is really a
part of having a conversation with God. It's a relationship
with God. And and this is just taking time consciously
to sit down and listen to God as well as
talk to God. Right?
S2 (06:46):
Absolutely. And that made such a difference in my own life. Gary.
I grew up in a Christian family. So blessed to
have parents who taught me the Bible. Who taught me
solid theology about God. And from an early age I
learned to read the Bible. I learned to do all
the spiritual disciplines. But it was God revealing himself to
(07:12):
me through scripture that really caused me to want to
know him more. It wasn't so much about did I
read my three chapters today, right? Can I check off
this list of okay, I'm on track or no, I'm
three days behind. It's going to take me so long
to catch up. It's showing up to the page and saying, God,
would you show me something about yourself? I think reading
(07:36):
the Word of God, this rhythm of the word, is
really about delighting in his revelation for us. He wants
to teach us who he is. He wants to reveal
new things about his heart toward us. And he does
that through Scripture.
S4 (07:52):
As a way Actually to talk to listeners who are
not Christians or they don't share our love for the Bible.
What would you say to them?
S2 (08:01):
I want to say that our story begins not with
sin or failure or falling short of God's glory. Our
story begins with a good creator and maker who made
us for relationship. He made us out of delight, out
of the overflow of delight. And he placed humans, Adam
(08:23):
and Eve in the Garden of Eden. And Eden means delight.
So the beginning of our story is an invitation to
relationship and delight. When sin entered the picture, it kind
of twisted that to where we now seek happiness and
joy and delight in other things, instead of finding that
(08:43):
fulfillment in God. And so my invitation to you, if
you're listening to this and you're like, oh, the Bible
is an ancient book. It's not relevant today. It feels boring.
It's just a legalistic thing that people say that you
should do. My invitation to you would be to reach
out to God in prayer and ask him. Ask him
(09:05):
to reveal himself to you and sit down with a
few chapters of of the book of John and ask,
what does this say about God? And Jesus promises that
he will gather his sheep, that he will speak to
his sheep, and they will hear his voice. And if
you truly, honestly want to get to know God, if
(09:29):
you truly want to know is this real? It is
God's delight to reveal himself to those who seek him.
Those who diligently seek him will find him when they
seek him with all of his heart. God says, I
will make myself found to them. So what a great adventure! Then,
if you're in that place where you're like, I'm not
(09:50):
sure if this is real or not. Ask God. It
will be his delight to say, let me show you.
As long as that request comes from a humble and
honest heart that pleases him.
S4 (10:05):
Ashreeta this is your 10th book, but of all the
devotionals and Bible studies that you've published, you share that
this has been the hardest one to write. Why is
that true?
S2 (10:19):
Well, Gary, I was not expecting this book to be
as difficult to write as it has been because as
I shared earlier, my name means God is my happiness.
God gives me happiness. And that's been true of my
life my whole life long. So I was so excited
to sit down and write a book about how to
find joy in Jesus, sharing with Christians what I've learned
(10:40):
throughout my walk with the Lord. But what I didn't
expect was to enter into one of the darkest periods
of my life just prior to writing this book. Feeling
myself in a place of just hardship and heaviness and
darkness and really questioning like where did my joy go? God,
(11:03):
if you are my happiness and I'm not experiencing that
happiness anymore. Then is this still true? Am I somehow,
how of your favor or your grace? Is that why
I feel this heaviness and this sorrow in my soul?
And that's what made this book so difficult to write,
was because I wanted to tell the truth, and I
(11:26):
had to first grapple with my own lack of joy.
And so that's where all of this, actually the beginning
of this book starts. It opens with me crying out
to the Lord and echoing David's words in Psalm 13, God,
turn and answer me. Restore the sparkle to my eyes,
or I will die. And I didn't even start writing
(11:49):
anything until almost a year later. So all of what
I had learned in theory up to that point, all
of what I had experienced on the sunshine days of life,
all of that then entered into what felt like the
valley of the shadow of death and saying, Will you
still walk with me? Will. Will you teach me about
(12:12):
your delight and your presence, even when I'm not joyful
and God in your kindness, would you restore joy? Like
if this is to be the rest of my life,
if it is to be obedient and diligence, even if
my emotions aren't there, then I will follow you. But God,
it would just. It would mean so much if you
(12:32):
were to restore my joy. Like, would you, in your kindness,
help me to sense your delight again? And what followed
was the Lord's kind healing of me, body and soul
and spirit and mind just a whole person restoration where
now I can say a couple years down the road
(12:52):
he has restored the sparkle to my eyes.
S4 (12:57):
Well, I think that's something that David spoke of often,
as you mentioned in the Psalms. And I think a
lot of our listeners can identify with that as well. Now,
you make the bold claim that what Western Christians think
is the gospel is actually an incomplete gospel for many. So.
So what is the gospel and how can we know
(13:19):
the correct definition?
S2 (13:22):
I think part of the challenge is when we present
the gospel starting with sin, and that's often how it's shared.
It's this to tell you the good news, I first
have to tell you the bad news. And we start
with sin and failure and condemnation. And then the good
news that Jesus came and paid the price for our sins. Hallelujah!
What a beautiful truth. But that is not where the
(13:45):
gospel begins. The gospel begins in Genesis chapter one. It
begins with a God of delight who created humans in
his image as his image bearers in the world, out
of delight, with an invitation then to relationship and delight
an understanding that God cares about our happiness. That God
truly longs for us to experience the fullness of joy
(14:09):
in his presence. Psalm 1611 says, in your presence is
fullness of joy. At your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
When we understand, then that that is what God is
inviting us into is a restoration of delight and relationship.
That yes, sin marred that and destroyed that. And because
of that, we lost the Garden of Eden. And Jesus
(14:32):
came as the God become flesh, God and humanity united
so that he might restore to us what has been
broken and stolen. Then Jesus dying on the cross is
not just for our sins. It is for death and
destruction and the curse of evil and everything that is
broken in the world. And his resurrection is, yes, the
(14:56):
the victory over sin and the enemy, but it also
brings in the new kingdom of God. Jesus looks at
people and in his day and he says, the kingdom
of God is here in your midst. It's moving out
in power. So the Spirit of God then coming to
dwell in us is not about sin management. It is
(15:16):
about the Spirit of God, then restoring to us his
own presence and and doing this good work of growing
into what it means to be followers of Jesus, what
it means to be those who love, who restore, who
bring the kingdom wherever we go. And that is the
work that we do. Then it's inviting people not into
(15:38):
this transactional like get out of hell free card. It's
not just about eternal security, and we just kind of
hang tight until Jesus comes back or until we die
and see him face to face. Like that misses the
heart of the gospel, which is that God has always
been about restoration and bringing about relationship and delight to
(16:03):
the fullness of what he created us for. And I
think it's once we capture that vision of, oh, how
much more is available to us through God's Spirit, how
much more he invites us into that, then it's not
about reading my Bible and praying every day because that's
what God expects of me. It's. Oh my goodness, God
(16:26):
wants so much for us here and now as the
body of Christ as His church. And so I'm going
to seek his face today, Lord, in these appointments that
you have for me in these projects at work, in
the challenges of parenting my children or with in-laws or
neighbors in these places. What does it look like to
say your kingdom come, your will be done on earth
(16:51):
as it is in heaven, and start here. Start in
my home. That then becomes a redemptive collaboration with God's Spirit.
That is what we see from Genesis to Revelation is
this is the big picture of what God invites us to.
And it is a compelling call then to say, Come
to Jesus. It's so much more than the Romans road. Think.
(17:13):
Thank God for those truths and for the beauty and
theological truths of atonement. But it is so much richer
and more beautiful and more compelling when we grasp the
heart of God for redemption and restoration. And that's not
just someday in heaven. It starts here and now with us,
with God's Spirit in us. Yeah.
S4 (17:35):
Actually, whether you talk about joy and we often hear
the word joy and happiness, is there a difference between
these two? According to the Bible.
S2 (17:44):
Oh, I'm so glad you brought that up, Gary. Because
when we look at the words that the Bible uses
for joy and happiness and delight, the Bible is indiscriminate
in its uses of these words. They are synonymous in Scripture,
and I think we do a disservice when we try
to kind of split hairs and say, oh, happiness is
(18:06):
what the world offers, and joy is what God offers.
In Scripture, honestly, they're the same because God is the
inventor of joy and happiness. Every good and beautiful gift
comes from God. Every wonderful thing, everything that's ever brought
a smile to your face has at its core, a
(18:26):
kernel of the goodness of God. So joy and happiness
are gifts from God. Where the problem comes in is
when we seek to fill that core desire for delight
and joy and happiness. What God created us in the
Garden of Eden to experience in him. When we reach
(18:48):
out for the fruit, when we seek to take hold
of that experience through food, through shopping, through alcohol, through relationships,
through money or power, when we reach for those other
things than to fill that desire and that void, that
is where we go awry. That that is where the
(19:08):
desire for a good thing is leading us in the
wrong direction. But when we find our true happiness, our
true desire and fulfillment in Christ, in Jesus, in the
fullness of who he is and what he's done, then
we can then receive those things as good gifts from him.
(19:29):
We're told that whether we eat or drink, we should
do it for God's glory. So even Jesus modeled this,
that he would have such a good time with his friends,
he would sit at late dinners and parties and have
just the grandest time. I feel like Jesus would be
such a fun party guest that the Pharisees accused him
(19:51):
of being a drunkard and a glutton like Jesus knew
how to receive food as a good gift, and it
brought joy and satisfaction because that was in its proper place.
He received it as a good gift from his father.
So every good and beautiful gift in our lives, whether
it's cuddling a baby and seeing the twinkle in their
eyes or playing catch with a son or a daughter or,
(20:16):
I don't know, seeing the sun rise and watching how
the sky is painted, all the beautiful colors or watching
your your team, your favorite sports team win a game
when God is in that place that he is our
true delight. All these other things we can receive as
gifts of joy from him and. And what a beautiful,
(20:39):
what a beautiful reality that God is a good father
who gives good gifts to his children. I think rather
than trying to push those aside and pretend they don't matter,
I think that does a disservice to our good father
who blesses us with so many gifts. I think instead,
when we learn to delight our souls in the Lord,
(20:59):
we can then receive all those things as the good
gifts that they're meant to be, that then reveal the
heart of the father who delights in us.
S4 (21:08):
Yeah, yeah. You know, in my research on the five
love languages, I've seen how people feel love in different ways.
You know what makes one person feel loved? Does it
make another person feel loved? And I actually wrote a
book called God Speaks Your Love Language, in which I
deal with conversion experiences, for example, that we have different
(21:30):
types of conversion experiences because God's speaking to people individually
so that they sense the love of God. Have you
observed this? Do you think people feel close to God
in different ways? What's your response to that idea?
S2 (21:45):
I'm so glad you brought that up, Gary, because I
read that book a few years ago, and it was
such a light bulb moment for me to be like, oh,
this makes so much sense. Like, God is the God
of love. So of course he would speak all the
love languages. And I loved how you walked through Scripture
to show ways in which God expresses his love in
(22:07):
all these ways. And I found that to be true
in my own life. Um, the way that I feel
close to God is different from how my husband feels
close to God, and is different from how my friends
feel close to God. And once we accept that they're
all gifts, like avenues and channels of love and adoration,
(22:29):
ways that we experience God's love, and ways that we
can express our love back to him, there's such freedom
that comes with that. That there is no one size
fits all quiet time formula in the Bible. There's nowhere
in Scripture that says that you need to get up
before the sun gets up and read your Bible for
an hour, or try to read, you know, the Bible
(22:52):
in a year. I've done that multiple times. I know
I keep picking on it, but it's been a good
experience for me in seasons of life, and at the
same time, I've gone through seasons where that wasn't a
possibility and I dealt with so much guilt and shame
because of a self-imposed project. Was God truly displeased with
(23:13):
me that I fell behind somewhere in numbers, or was
that my own expectation of I think this is what
God wants from me? Searching scripture and saying, how does
God invite us to draw near to him, brought such
liberation to see that there's no formula. And so there's
this freedom that there's one way to God the Father,
(23:37):
and that is through Jesus Christ the Son. And if
you come to God through Jesus, there are a multitude
of ways that you can do that. So you can
listen to the audio Bible as you drive to work,
or you might write a verse on your hand and
look at it throughout the day and meditate on it
and memorize it and think about how does this reveal
(24:00):
the heart of God to me? Just meditating on that
one verse you might spend. I did this last year.
I spent a whole year in the sermon on the Mount,
and I would listen to those three chapters morning by morning,
just letting those words wash over me. Um, I love
that God invites us to come to him the way
(24:21):
that he created us to. And so some of us
are auditory learners and some of us are visual learners,
and some of us are kinesthetic learners. And so what
what works for me, the way that I learn is
going to be different than the way my friend Amanda
or Melissa learns. So why would I impose on them
a certain standard of oh, this is what you must do,
(24:43):
or this is what good Christians do? If that's not
in Scripture, then we're treading on legalistic ground there. We're
starting to put on other people a burden that was
never from God. So I think what he invites us
to is this glorious invitation with open hands, Jesus saying,
come to me. Come to me. And and if you
(25:05):
don't know how to do that, if you feel like, well,
I've tried all these different ways that work for different people,
and I feel like it doesn't really work for me.
Then I invite listeners to ask God, ask him to
show you, how did you create me to connect with you?
How did you create me to experience your love? Maybe
(25:26):
it's going for a walk in the forest and talking
to God out in nature. Maybe that's how you feel
closest to God. Or. Or maybe it's gathering with others
in corporate worship and singing your heart out, or sitting
quietly at the piano at home and playing some worship
songs to the Lord. There are so many different ways
(25:46):
that God invites us to come to Him in Jesus Christ.
I think as the body of Christ, we can do
a better job celebrating that diversity and the variety, rather
than comparing and trying to force people into a box
that never came from the Lord.
S1 (26:06):
Thanks for joining us today for the Building Relationships with
Doctor Gary Chapman podcast. Gary's the author of the New
York Times best seller The Five Love Languages. You can
find out more about your love language or our featured
resource by going to Building relationships.us. You'll see a link
there to the book by our guest, doctor Bob Paul.
(26:26):
It's titled Empowered to Love Discovering your God given Power
to create a marriage you both love. Just go to
building relationships.
S4 (26:35):
Us I Cherita you talk about devotional personalities and personality types.
How do you find out your devotional personality type?
S2 (26:47):
Well, that's a great question, Gary, and I'll be the
first to say that I don't have, like the authoritative
manual on this. It comes more so from my experience
of shepherding people throughout the last ten, 12 years. And
also I've learned a lot from Gary Thomas and his book,
Sacred Pathways, that different people connect to God in different ways.
(27:12):
And so as I've kind of been working on this
topic and thinking about delighting in the Lord and the
different ways that we can delight in him, I found
that people tend to fall in one of these five
general categories. I'll say like primary, devotional, personality type. I
(27:32):
think we all can feel close to God in these ways,
but you might be more likely to connect with one
than the other, so I'll go through them. But if
listeners are curious, we actually put together a quiz called
the Devotional Personality Type Quiz. It's absolutely free. Listeners can
find it at Delighting Angieslist.com. And we've had over 30,000
(27:54):
people take this quiz over the last couple of years.
So we've seen these results pan out again and again.
But I'll say that the five types that I find
people tend to relate to or lean into is those
who feel close to God in worship. I mentioned earlier
singing corporately or playing songs of of worship or hymns
(28:19):
at home. There's just something about song and more so
than song. Feeling like everything they do is an act
of worship and adoration, delighting in the heart of God.
So that would be our our radiant worshippers there, those
who feel close to God through the word and I.
I'm one of these. I affectionately call us word nerds.
(28:43):
When I learn something new about God in Scripture, my
whole face lights up. I feel like God just gave
me a nugget, an insight into who he is, and I.
I feel his love toward me. I feel his personal
revelation in Scripture. I love delighting in his revelation in
(29:03):
the word. And so there are people who will feel
close to God that way. We've got word nerds and
such a fun group. We could talk to you for
three hours about one theological concept and never tire out. Um,
and then we have those who feel close to God
in prayer, and I call these people the Whisperers. Um,
(29:23):
it's because there are in ongoing, continual conversation with the Lord,
whether it's in their quiet time with their prayer journal
and their bringing to God requests and interceding on behalf
of others, or they're praying as they're washing dishes, they're
praying as they're running errands, they just have a heart
posture of ongoing whispers with heaven. And also, these are
(29:47):
those who are more likely to hear God's voice whispering
back to them. I talked about the good Shepherd who
speaks to his sheep, and they hear his voice. They
recognize his voice. These are the people that you want
to go to and have in your life. When you
need intercession, when you need discernment, when you need someone to.
Would you beseech God with me? And what you'll notice
(30:11):
about all of these devotional personality types is they are
all needed in the body of Christ. So we need
to celebrate that we have word nerds and whisperers and worshipers,
but we can all grow in these rhythms as well.
It's just I think one of them might come easier,
or it might be dominant in our lives than others.
(30:31):
So we got the worshippers, the word nerds, the whisperers.
We have what I call the wonder chasers. And these
are those who feel closest to God when they experience
awe and wonder. It might be standing on a beach
and watching the waves crash in and just sensing the
grandeur of God and their own smallness. And it's in
(30:53):
that moment that they feel like they have this mountaintop
experience with God. It might be that they stand on
their front porch with a mug of coffee, watching the
sun rise or set and saying, oh, the beauty and
wonder of a creator who can paint the skies this way.
These are people who walk through life with eyes wide open.
(31:14):
And they see wonder wherever they go. They seem to
retain that childlike admiration for the fingerprints of God throughout
their lives, and not just nature, but in their own life.
They'll be the first ones to say you'll never guess
what God did. It feels like God's always moving in
their lives in a powerful way, and it's more so
that they're just awake to the wonder that God has
(31:37):
placed in each of our lives. So those are the
wonder chasers. And then the last ones, I'll say, are
those who feel predominantly delight in God, or sense his
presence and his delight in them as they walk out
obedience with God. So these are the the obedient walkers.
They're the ones who you might hear them say, well,
(31:58):
God's Spirit told me to call that person or God's
Spirit really just impressed on my heart that I need
to do this thing or I need to move in
this way. And there's just this sense in which they
are walking in step with the spirit. They're knowing where
God is moving in the room, where he's moving in
the world, and they're joining him in what feels like
(32:21):
such a personal way. And these are the ones who
are most likely to be active in the church, in
the community, they're more likely to be activists, to seek justice,
to to want to see God's kingdom come in the world.
They're not content with just reading their Bible and praying
and keeping their faith to themselves. They want to see
(32:41):
it move out into the world. So they're walking in
obedience with God in their own personal life and and
sometimes in a bigger way, too. So we have these
five devotional personality types, ways in which we experience God's
delight in us, and we delight in him in in return.
And I would argue, all of us need all of these.
(33:04):
Like we all need to be in the word. We
all need to experience the gifts of God through wonder
and delight in his heart through worship. I think Jesus,
when we look at the Gospels, he lived out all
of these rhythms of delight as well. But I'm sure
even as listeners, we're we're hearing me talk about these
five devotional types Hopes that they might find themselves kind
(33:26):
of gravitating toward one. So my encouragement would be, if
you're like, ah, I'm not sure which one is mine. Um,
there's that quiz that you can take, but also if
you feel like you're in a dry place spiritually, if
you feel like, gosh, I'm doing all the things, I'm
reading my Bible and going to church and praying, and
I just don't sense God's delight. Maybe he's inviting you
(33:46):
to lean into that one primary way that he wants
to express his delight toward you. Maybe it's time for
more walks outside, or it's time to really dig into Scripture.
That might be God's invitation to delight for you. Today.
S4 (34:02):
I think our listeners can identify with what you're saying there,
so let me encourage you. If you're listening, go to
that website Delighting in jesus.com and take that quiz, I
thank you. I think you'll find it helpful, but let
me change the subject. A.W. Tozer said that what comes
into our minds when we think about God is the
(34:23):
most important thing about us. Now you see that a
little differently. How would you respond to that idea?
S2 (34:31):
Well, I really love that quote by A.W. Tozer, actually.
And I see his point. I think how we view
God is so important, but it's actually I stumbled on
a quote by C.S. Lewis, actually, that he disagrees with A.W.
Tozer on this, and I found that exchange fascinating in
that I would say Lewis agrees. Yes, that what we
(34:53):
think about God is important. But Lewis would say What
God thinks about us is infinitely more important. We need
to think about what is God's posture toward us. Is
he an angry God? I mean, one of the most
influential sermons in American history is Jonathan Edwards Sinners in
(35:14):
the Hands of an Angry God. And in my own life, I.
I grew up thinking that God's primary disposition toward me
was one of expectation and, by implication, disappointment, that that
God had such high hopes for me. And here I go,
sinning again. Here I go, falling into the same temptation.
(35:36):
He must be so disappointed. He must be so angry.
And I think Tozer would agree in this that we
often type our view of God on our experience of
our own fathers. How we experience our fathers is often
how we view God. And so if we had fathers
who were angry, we're more likely to think that God
(35:58):
is angry. If we had fathers who would set aside
what they were working on to turn toward us. When
we walked in the room to greet us with compassion
and excitement, if they wanted to listen to what we
had to say about our day, then we're more likely
to think that God's disposition toward us is that he
wants to hear from us, that he's eager to to
(36:19):
listen in prayer. So I think, yes, it's important how
we view God. And I think there's good work for
us to do to unpack how much of our theology
and how we view God is scriptural, and how much
of it is just what we've inherited from our culture
or our own experience growing up. But I would agree
with Lewis. I think more important is how God views us.
(36:43):
Is God's disposition toward us one of pity, one of
anger or disappointment, or is it something else? And this
was just such an incredible journey for me to go
through Scripture to study this theme from Genesis to Revelation.
I actually went through and read through the Bible. Not
(37:03):
in a year. It took like 18 months for this project,
but I read through the Bible cover to cover, underlining
every single time the words joy or happiness or delight
or celebration showed up. Actually, one of the Hebrew words
for Blessed Asher is also translated happy. It means a
profound happiness is what? Blessed means. So I would look
(37:26):
up those verses and cross-references as well. And as I
did this deep dive into the theme of joy and
happiness in Scripture, what I found is that God's disposition
toward us is not one of pity. It's not one
of anger or judgment, but rather the Lord, the Lord,
compassionate and gracious and kind, that he has toward us
(37:50):
a heart of love and joy and delight, that again
and again that is who God presents himself to be.
He says, I don't delight in the death of the wicked.
I don't delight in punishing my children. Even discipline comes
from a heart of love and a longing to restore
to that place of joy and fulfillment. And I think
(38:11):
when we understand God this way, when we think God
actually cares about our joy. God actually longs for us
to experience the fullness of joy in his presence. That
changes then how we engage in these spiritual disciplines. It
changes how we set goals for our year. It changes
(38:33):
how we make decisions because then we want to experience
that love, the love of a God who delights in us.
I think it makes all the difference.
S4 (38:44):
Actually, many people view the Old Testament as a god
of anger and the New Testament a God of love.
How do you respond to that?
S2 (38:54):
Yeah. Well, again, if we take that to Scripture and say, well,
what does the Bible say? Does the Bible present God
as an angry, vengeful God in the Old Testament? Is
that true? And what we find is exactly the opposite.
There are hundreds of references to the God who delights
just a few of them, like Psalm 149, the Lord
(39:16):
takes pleasure in his people. He adorns the humble with salvation.
Psalm 18. He brought me out to a spacious place.
He rescued me because he delighted in me. Luke 15
I tell you, in the same way there will be
more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than
over 99 righteous people who don't need repentance. That is
(39:38):
God the Father who is celebrating the return of his children.
Zephaniah 317 the Lord your God is among you, a
warrior who saves. He will rejoice over you with gladness.
He will be quiet in his love. He will delight
in you with singing. And here's the thing we cannot
(39:59):
say that the Old Testament God is an angry God.
And the New Testament Jesus is a loving and kind
Jesus because they are one and the same. Jesus is
God the Father. Jesus and the Holy Spirit share in
these characteristics of love and joy and delight. In fact,
when Jesus came on the scene, he came to make
(40:21):
manifest God. He came to show us the heart of
the father. So what we see in Jesus, the one
who describes himself as gentle and humble in heart, the
one who opens up his arms and says to the children,
come to me like, let the children come to me. Don't,
don't stop them. The one who enjoyed a good party
(40:42):
and the one who would look out on on the
landscape and say, look at the birds of the air.
Look at the lilies of the field, that Jesus, that
is who the father is revealed to be, because Jesus
revealed to us the heart of the father. And so
the father then is the one who delights. I just
think we need to work so hard to hold on
(41:07):
to this image of an angry, vengeful God when we
read Scripture because the story from Genesis to Revelation is
the heart of a good God who longs to bring
his people and restore them back to relationship with him,
so they are one in the same. The God who
(41:28):
created humans longs to be in relationship, longs to restore
joy and delight. And when we look at revelation, it
is the promise of that, that joy fulfilled. It is
the promise that from Genesis what the God of the
Old Testament promised and what the Jesus of the New
Testament came to reveal that in revelation it will finally
(41:49):
be fulfilled. God will once again dwell with his people,
and we will be his people, and he will be
our God. And we will finally experience the the longing,
the fulfillment of that longing and what Jesus describes as
a wedding. It's going to be a celebration. It's going
to be a party. That is what the God the
(42:10):
Father and Jesus the Son and the Spirit of God
in us are all working toward that part of the story,
when all our hopes will finally be fulfilled in him.
S4 (42:24):
Ashreeta much in your new book combines recent brain science
with deep biblical study. What does scientific discoveries have to
do with learning to delight in Jesus?
S2 (42:37):
That's such a great question, Gary. And it's part of
what's been the most fun research for this book, is
learning how God wired our brains, created our brains for joy. Uh,
and and what we're learning from brain science doesn't at
all contradict Scripture. If anything, God is the one who
created our brains. So what scientists are learning about neural pathways,
(43:02):
and a lot that I would love to share just
so much about this. But I just want to say like,
this is God's very good idea. And part of what
was just fascinating to me to learn was that God
created a part of our brains to be kind of
the Joy center. It's the right frontal cortex. It's right
(43:23):
above our right eyeball. And this is the place where
we can experience peace. We make rational decisions, we experience
joy and goodness and balance. And then there's another part
of our brain, the amygdala. It's kind of in the
back of our head that triggers our fight or flight response.
(43:43):
It's where we experience stress. And so when we're scrolling
our phones and there's bad news, when there's comparison, when
we're just kind of in that doom scroll mode, or
when we experience stress in our lives and our families
and our bodies, we will respond out of the amygdala.
And both of these parts of our brains will flood
(44:05):
our bodies with hormones. But what we've learned in recent
years is we are spending so much time in the amygdala,
we're spending so much time in that stressful part of
our brains that we're having a hard time coming out
of that. We're seeing increasing levels of depression and anxiety
and sleeplessness and insomnia. So many concerns about our mental
(44:30):
health and our physical health because we're living out of
the amygdala. And what I've learned is it doesn't have
to be that way. I personally found myself stuck in
the amygdala going back to the beginning of the interview,
when I said I found myself in that dark place.
That's where I was. And I share more about that
in in this book. But what brought me such hope
(44:51):
is we don't have to be stuck there just because
we find ourselves repeating patterns of pessimism or criticism or
bitterness or hopelessness or anxiety. We don't have to live
that way. God created our brains with the ability to
renew and rewire, and this is called neuroplasticity. The more
(45:12):
we repeat something, the easier it will become for our brains.
And so one way I call it the joy pathway.
One way for us to get from the amygdala in
the back of the brain, back to the right frontal cortex.
That joy center is through the rhythms that I share
in the book. Things like having our eyes open to
thank God for the good things in our lives. Celebrating
(45:33):
what we're learning about Jesus in Scripture. Even something as
simple as going for a walk in the morning and
allowing the sunshine to fill our lives with good things. Actually,
the the morning sun rays do something in our brains
where it helps set our circadian rhythm. I mean, all
of these might sound like, okay. Ashreeta what's the point here?
(45:54):
What's what's the connection is that all of these things
are simple habits that God gives us to restore joy.
And in my own life, as I started practicing these
simple joy, habits, rhythms of delight, ways in which to
receive the delight of God in my life. He started
(46:16):
rewiring my brain, and I found myself spending less time
in the amygdala, less time stressed and sorrowful, and more
time in a place of peace and tranquility and joy.
And all of that is possible because of how God
created our brains. And so this brain science that we're learning,
that I've based the whole of my book, these rhythms
(46:38):
of delight are based on brain science. And the Bible
is just saying, okay, this is what scientists are discovering,
and they're not quite sure what to do with it.
And yet God invites us to take what we're learning
in science and combine it with what he's shown us
in Scripture. And then that's how he's going to restore
our joy. That's how he's going to heal our bodies
and our hearts and our minds and our spirits. Those
(47:01):
who look to him for help, Psalm 34 says, will
be radiant with joy. No shadow of shame will darken
their faces. And that's what he has done in my life,
is what I want to shout from the rooftops. I
think it's the work that he wants to do in
our generation. And so that is my invitation to those
who are listening. Would you ask God to restore joy
(47:24):
in your life? He's going to do it through your brain.
He's going to do it through your life. He's going
to do it through community, through the local church, through Scripture.
But that is his heart posture to invite us to
delight in him.
S4 (47:35):
Let's read. I think our listeners can identify with that.
And let me just thank you for being with us today.
Delighting in Jesus. And I believe this book is going
to help a lot of people do just that. So
thank you again for writing the book. Thank you for
being with us today on building relationships.
S2 (47:54):
Thank you so much for having me, Gary. It's been
my joy to be here, and I so appreciate the
work that you've done that has led to more of
experiencing God's love in my own life. Thank you.
S3 (48:06):
A delightful guest today On building relationships, Asher read his book.
One of the reviews says this her words are a
cool breeze on a sweltering day. I hope that's happened
in your heart as you've listened today. Go to building
relationships us. You'll see more about delighting in Jesus rhythms
to restore joy. When you feel burdened, broken, or burned
(48:29):
out again, go to Building Relationships. Dot us.
S4 (48:33):
And next week, if you have a struggle in parenting
an adult child, don't miss our conversation.
S1 (48:40):
Doctor Chapman shares wisdom on your new life with your
adult children in one week. Our thanks to our production
team Steve Wick and Janice. Backing building relationships with Doctor
Gary Chapman is a production of Moody Radio in association
with Moody Publishers, a ministry of Moody Bible Institute.
UU (48:57):
Thanks for listening.
If you feel like you're on a spiritual hamster wheel
trying to do enough to make God happy. Don't miss
today's Building Relationships with Doctor Gary Chapman.
S2 (00:13):
Maybe he's inviting you to lean into that one primary
way that he wants to express his delight toward you.
Maybe it's time for more walks outside, or it's time
to really dig into Scripture. That might be God's invitation
to delight for you today.
S1 (00:31):
Welcome to building relationships with Doctor Gary Chapman, author of
the New York Times best seller The Five Love Languages. Today,
author and speaker Ashrita ChuChu is back with some help.
For anyone who's burdened, broken, or burned out.
S3 (00:46):
She's asking an important question what if we've gotten the
spiritual disciplines wrong? What if our growth and maturity come
not from perfecting our quiet time, but really in delighting
in the perfect love of the father for you and me.
Acereda develops that in the new book. She's titled Delighting
in Jesus Rhythms to restore joy when you feel burdened, broken,
(01:09):
or burned out. Is that how you feel today? It's
our featured resource at Building Relationships, us and Gary. I
don't think we've ever talked about this. Have you ever
gone through that struggle of trying to measure up spiritually,
or falling into the performance trap with God?
S4 (01:26):
You know, Chris, I think in the early days when
I was first introduced to the daily quiet time, you know,
I kind of saw it as I have to do
this every day, you know, in order for God to
be with me. ET cetera. ET cetera. But that's been
a long time ago. It's still a very active part
of my life, but I'm not allowing the fact that
(01:49):
I miss a morning because I have to catch an
early flight. You know, I just say, hey, God, let's
talk on the plane. You know, and let's talk as
we drive to the airport. So. Yeah. But I understand.
I understand that concept. And I'm really glad we're going
to be discussing this today.
S3 (02:04):
Me too. Let me reintroduce our guest. She's a best
selling author of ten books. National retreat speaker teaches the
Bible on YouTube. Ashreeta ChuChu grew up as a missionary
kid in Romania. She married her high school sweetheart, Flavio,
and they have three children. Live in Northeast Ohio. Her
latest is our featured resource at Building Relationships US. It's
(02:28):
titled Delighting in Jesus Rhythms to restore joy when you
feel burdened, broken, or burned out. Again, go to building relationships.us.
S4 (02:38):
Well, Ashreeta, welcome back to Building Relationships.
S2 (02:41):
Thank you so much for having me back on. It's
my joy to be here.
S4 (02:45):
I don't think we've ever talked about your name. So
let's start there. What does that name mean? Ashreeta?
S2 (02:54):
Sure. My name is actually made up. My father made
it up. It's Hebrew for God gives me happiness. And
that's just been a blessing on my life since I
was a little girl, that I would grow up to
learn that God is my happiness.
S4 (03:11):
Wow. I like that. Many Christians feel guilty about not
reading the Bible or praying enough. But you believe that
this view of spiritual disciplines is actually anti-Christian? Can you
explain that?
S2 (03:27):
Yeah, this view of reading my Bible or praying every
day kind of checklist spiritual mentality is based in performance,
in wanting to make sure that we measure up to
some level of what God expects of us or, um,
kind of reaching that super Christian level of I read
the Bible through a year, or I spend an hour, um,
(03:50):
studying my Bible and praying, and that is rooted in
a desire to perform, to reach a certain level of
I don't want to say maturity as much as I'm
doing it right. And when Jesus was on the cross,
he achieved everything that is needed to be made right
(04:12):
with God. It is Jesus's sacrifice plus nothing else. That
is why he said it is finished. So whenever we
try to add to Jesus's sacrifice through our our good deeds,
through even reading the Bible or going to church, there's
this sneaky deception that can sneak in where we think
(04:33):
we need to do something to make God happy with us.
But if we belong to Christ, when God looks at us,
he sees the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ. There's nothing
else we can do to add to that. So reading
our Bible and praying and going to church and fasting
and sharing the gospel with our neighbors or friends or coworkers.
(04:56):
Those are all things that we do out of the
overflow of what Jesus has accomplished, not to add to it.
S4 (05:04):
Yeah. So it seems to me that what you're advocating
is a real relationship with God based on loving acceptance,
rather than a formula that's based on performance. Is that right?
S2 (05:19):
Yeah. That's it exactly. I think what God invites us
into with these practices is to nurture our friendship with Jesus,
to receive his delight in us and respond to him
with delight. And so reading our Bible doesn't have to
be a chore anymore. It doesn't have to be boring
(05:40):
when we get to Leviticus. I mean, they'll still be
challenging sections. We still need to do the hard work
of showing up and and reading. But we have a helper.
Jesus says, I'm not going to leave you by yourself.
I'm going to send the counselor and he will lead
you in all truth. So when we sit down with
Leviticus and we're like, what's with the blood? What's with
(06:03):
the sacrifices? What's with I don't understand. We can ask
God's Spirit, would you open my eyes? Would you help
me to see Jesus here? Would you give me a
hunger and a thirst to get to know you more?
And once you see Jesus in Leviticus, it just unlocks
(06:23):
a world of understanding of who he is and what
he's done for us. It's such a fun adventure.
S4 (06:29):
Yeah. So the reading of the scriptures is really a
part of having a conversation with God. It's a relationship
with God. And and this is just taking time consciously
to sit down and listen to God as well as
talk to God. Right?
S2 (06:46):
Absolutely. And that made such a difference in my own life. Gary.
I grew up in a Christian family. So blessed to
have parents who taught me the Bible. Who taught me
solid theology about God. And from an early age I
learned to read the Bible. I learned to do all
the spiritual disciplines. But it was God revealing himself to
(07:12):
me through scripture that really caused me to want to
know him more. It wasn't so much about did I
read my three chapters today, right? Can I check off
this list of okay, I'm on track or no, I'm
three days behind. It's going to take me so long
to catch up. It's showing up to the page and saying, God,
would you show me something about yourself? I think reading
(07:36):
the Word of God, this rhythm of the word, is
really about delighting in his revelation for us. He wants
to teach us who he is. He wants to reveal
new things about his heart toward us. And he does
that through Scripture.
S4 (07:52):
As a way Actually to talk to listeners who are
not Christians or they don't share our love for the Bible.
What would you say to them?
S2 (08:01):
I want to say that our story begins not with
sin or failure or falling short of God's glory. Our
story begins with a good creator and maker who made
us for relationship. He made us out of delight, out
of the overflow of delight. And he placed humans, Adam
(08:23):
and Eve in the Garden of Eden. And Eden means delight.
So the beginning of our story is an invitation to
relationship and delight. When sin entered the picture, it kind
of twisted that to where we now seek happiness and
joy and delight in other things, instead of finding that
(08:43):
fulfillment in God. And so my invitation to you, if
you're listening to this and you're like, oh, the Bible
is an ancient book. It's not relevant today. It feels boring.
It's just a legalistic thing that people say that you
should do. My invitation to you would be to reach
out to God in prayer and ask him. Ask him
(09:05):
to reveal himself to you and sit down with a
few chapters of of the book of John and ask,
what does this say about God? And Jesus promises that
he will gather his sheep, that he will speak to
his sheep, and they will hear his voice. And if
you truly, honestly want to get to know God, if
(09:29):
you truly want to know is this real? It is
God's delight to reveal himself to those who seek him.
Those who diligently seek him will find him when they
seek him with all of his heart. God says, I
will make myself found to them. So what a great adventure! Then,
if you're in that place where you're like, I'm not
(09:50):
sure if this is real or not. Ask God. It
will be his delight to say, let me show you.
As long as that request comes from a humble and
honest heart that pleases him.
S4 (10:05):
Ashreeta this is your 10th book, but of all the
devotionals and Bible studies that you've published, you share that
this has been the hardest one to write. Why is
that true?
S2 (10:19):
Well, Gary, I was not expecting this book to be
as difficult to write as it has been because as
I shared earlier, my name means God is my happiness.
God gives me happiness. And that's been true of my
life my whole life long. So I was so excited
to sit down and write a book about how to
find joy in Jesus, sharing with Christians what I've learned
(10:40):
throughout my walk with the Lord. But what I didn't
expect was to enter into one of the darkest periods
of my life just prior to writing this book. Feeling
myself in a place of just hardship and heaviness and
darkness and really questioning like where did my joy go? God,
(11:03):
if you are my happiness and I'm not experiencing that
happiness anymore. Then is this still true? Am I somehow,
how of your favor or your grace? Is that why
I feel this heaviness and this sorrow in my soul?
And that's what made this book so difficult to write,
was because I wanted to tell the truth, and I
(11:26):
had to first grapple with my own lack of joy.
And so that's where all of this, actually the beginning
of this book starts. It opens with me crying out
to the Lord and echoing David's words in Psalm 13, God,
turn and answer me. Restore the sparkle to my eyes,
or I will die. And I didn't even start writing
(11:49):
anything until almost a year later. So all of what
I had learned in theory up to that point, all
of what I had experienced on the sunshine days of life,
all of that then entered into what felt like the
valley of the shadow of death and saying, Will you
still walk with me? Will. Will you teach me about
(12:12):
your delight and your presence, even when I'm not joyful
and God in your kindness, would you restore joy? Like
if this is to be the rest of my life,
if it is to be obedient and diligence, even if
my emotions aren't there, then I will follow you. But God,
it would just. It would mean so much if you
(12:32):
were to restore my joy. Like, would you, in your kindness,
help me to sense your delight again? And what followed
was the Lord's kind healing of me, body and soul
and spirit and mind just a whole person restoration where
now I can say a couple years down the road
(12:52):
he has restored the sparkle to my eyes.
S4 (12:57):
Well, I think that's something that David spoke of often,
as you mentioned in the Psalms. And I think a
lot of our listeners can identify with that as well. Now,
you make the bold claim that what Western Christians think
is the gospel is actually an incomplete gospel for many. So.
So what is the gospel and how can we know
(13:19):
the correct definition?
S2 (13:22):
I think part of the challenge is when we present
the gospel starting with sin, and that's often how it's shared.
It's this to tell you the good news, I first
have to tell you the bad news. And we start
with sin and failure and condemnation. And then the good
news that Jesus came and paid the price for our sins. Hallelujah!
What a beautiful truth. But that is not where the
(13:45):
gospel begins. The gospel begins in Genesis chapter one. It
begins with a God of delight who created humans in
his image as his image bearers in the world, out
of delight, with an invitation then to relationship and delight
an understanding that God cares about our happiness. That God
truly longs for us to experience the fullness of joy
(14:09):
in his presence. Psalm 1611 says, in your presence is
fullness of joy. At your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
When we understand, then that that is what God is
inviting us into is a restoration of delight and relationship.
That yes, sin marred that and destroyed that. And because
of that, we lost the Garden of Eden. And Jesus
(14:32):
came as the God become flesh, God and humanity united
so that he might restore to us what has been
broken and stolen. Then Jesus dying on the cross is
not just for our sins. It is for death and
destruction and the curse of evil and everything that is
broken in the world. And his resurrection is, yes, the
(14:56):
the victory over sin and the enemy, but it also
brings in the new kingdom of God. Jesus looks at
people and in his day and he says, the kingdom
of God is here in your midst. It's moving out
in power. So the Spirit of God then coming to
dwell in us is not about sin management. It is
(15:16):
about the Spirit of God, then restoring to us his
own presence and and doing this good work of growing
into what it means to be followers of Jesus, what
it means to be those who love, who restore, who
bring the kingdom wherever we go. And that is the
work that we do. Then it's inviting people not into
(15:38):
this transactional like get out of hell free card. It's
not just about eternal security, and we just kind of
hang tight until Jesus comes back or until we die
and see him face to face. Like that misses the
heart of the gospel, which is that God has always
been about restoration and bringing about relationship and delight to
(16:03):
the fullness of what he created us for. And I
think it's once we capture that vision of, oh, how
much more is available to us through God's Spirit, how
much more he invites us into that, then it's not
about reading my Bible and praying every day because that's
what God expects of me. It's. Oh my goodness, God
(16:26):
wants so much for us here and now as the
body of Christ as His church. And so I'm going
to seek his face today, Lord, in these appointments that
you have for me in these projects at work, in
the challenges of parenting my children or with in-laws or
neighbors in these places. What does it look like to
say your kingdom come, your will be done on earth
(16:51):
as it is in heaven, and start here. Start in
my home. That then becomes a redemptive collaboration with God's Spirit.
That is what we see from Genesis to Revelation is
this is the big picture of what God invites us to.
And it is a compelling call then to say, Come
to Jesus. It's so much more than the Romans road. Think.
(17:13):
Thank God for those truths and for the beauty and
theological truths of atonement. But it is so much richer
and more beautiful and more compelling when we grasp the
heart of God for redemption and restoration. And that's not
just someday in heaven. It starts here and now with us,
with God's Spirit in us. Yeah.
S4 (17:35):
Actually, whether you talk about joy and we often hear
the word joy and happiness, is there a difference between
these two? According to the Bible.
S2 (17:44):
Oh, I'm so glad you brought that up, Gary. Because
when we look at the words that the Bible uses
for joy and happiness and delight, the Bible is indiscriminate
in its uses of these words. They are synonymous in Scripture,
and I think we do a disservice when we try
to kind of split hairs and say, oh, happiness is
(18:06):
what the world offers, and joy is what God offers.
In Scripture, honestly, they're the same because God is the
inventor of joy and happiness. Every good and beautiful gift
comes from God. Every wonderful thing, everything that's ever brought
a smile to your face has at its core, a
(18:26):
kernel of the goodness of God. So joy and happiness
are gifts from God. Where the problem comes in is
when we seek to fill that core desire for delight
and joy and happiness. What God created us in the
Garden of Eden to experience in him. When we reach
(18:48):
out for the fruit, when we seek to take hold
of that experience through food, through shopping, through alcohol, through relationships,
through money or power, when we reach for those other
things than to fill that desire and that void, that
is where we go awry. That that is where the
(19:08):
desire for a good thing is leading us in the
wrong direction. But when we find our true happiness, our
true desire and fulfillment in Christ, in Jesus, in the
fullness of who he is and what he's done, then
we can then receive those things as good gifts from him.
(19:29):
We're told that whether we eat or drink, we should
do it for God's glory. So even Jesus modeled this,
that he would have such a good time with his friends,
he would sit at late dinners and parties and have
just the grandest time. I feel like Jesus would be
such a fun party guest that the Pharisees accused him
(19:51):
of being a drunkard and a glutton like Jesus knew
how to receive food as a good gift, and it
brought joy and satisfaction because that was in its proper place.
He received it as a good gift from his father.
So every good and beautiful gift in our lives, whether
it's cuddling a baby and seeing the twinkle in their
eyes or playing catch with a son or a daughter or,
(20:16):
I don't know, seeing the sun rise and watching how
the sky is painted, all the beautiful colors or watching
your your team, your favorite sports team win a game
when God is in that place that he is our
true delight. All these other things we can receive as
gifts of joy from him and. And what a beautiful,
(20:39):
what a beautiful reality that God is a good father
who gives good gifts to his children. I think rather
than trying to push those aside and pretend they don't matter,
I think that does a disservice to our good father
who blesses us with so many gifts. I think instead,
when we learn to delight our souls in the Lord,
(20:59):
we can then receive all those things as the good
gifts that they're meant to be, that then reveal the
heart of the father who delights in us.
S4 (21:08):
Yeah, yeah. You know, in my research on the five
love languages, I've seen how people feel love in different ways.
You know what makes one person feel loved? Does it
make another person feel loved? And I actually wrote a
book called God Speaks Your Love Language, in which I
deal with conversion experiences, for example, that we have different
(21:30):
types of conversion experiences because God's speaking to people individually
so that they sense the love of God. Have you
observed this? Do you think people feel close to God
in different ways? What's your response to that idea?
S2 (21:45):
I'm so glad you brought that up, Gary, because I
read that book a few years ago, and it was
such a light bulb moment for me to be like, oh,
this makes so much sense. Like, God is the God
of love. So of course he would speak all the
love languages. And I loved how you walked through Scripture
to show ways in which God expresses his love in
(22:07):
all these ways. And I found that to be true
in my own life. Um, the way that I feel
close to God is different from how my husband feels
close to God, and is different from how my friends
feel close to God. And once we accept that they're
all gifts, like avenues and channels of love and adoration,
(22:29):
ways that we experience God's love, and ways that we
can express our love back to him, there's such freedom
that comes with that. That there is no one size
fits all quiet time formula in the Bible. There's nowhere
in Scripture that says that you need to get up
before the sun gets up and read your Bible for
an hour, or try to read, you know, the Bible
(22:52):
in a year. I've done that multiple times. I know
I keep picking on it, but it's been a good
experience for me in seasons of life, and at the
same time, I've gone through seasons where that wasn't a
possibility and I dealt with so much guilt and shame
because of a self-imposed project. Was God truly displeased with
(23:13):
me that I fell behind somewhere in numbers, or was
that my own expectation of I think this is what
God wants from me? Searching scripture and saying, how does
God invite us to draw near to him, brought such
liberation to see that there's no formula. And so there's
this freedom that there's one way to God the Father,
(23:37):
and that is through Jesus Christ the Son. And if
you come to God through Jesus, there are a multitude
of ways that you can do that. So you can
listen to the audio Bible as you drive to work,
or you might write a verse on your hand and
look at it throughout the day and meditate on it
and memorize it and think about how does this reveal
(24:00):
the heart of God to me? Just meditating on that
one verse you might spend. I did this last year.
I spent a whole year in the sermon on the Mount,
and I would listen to those three chapters morning by morning,
just letting those words wash over me. Um, I love
that God invites us to come to him the way
(24:21):
that he created us to. And so some of us
are auditory learners and some of us are visual learners,
and some of us are kinesthetic learners. And so what
what works for me, the way that I learn is
going to be different than the way my friend Amanda
or Melissa learns. So why would I impose on them
a certain standard of oh, this is what you must do,
(24:43):
or this is what good Christians do? If that's not
in Scripture, then we're treading on legalistic ground there. We're
starting to put on other people a burden that was
never from God. So I think what he invites us
to is this glorious invitation with open hands, Jesus saying,
come to me. Come to me. And and if you
(25:05):
don't know how to do that, if you feel like, well,
I've tried all these different ways that work for different people,
and I feel like it doesn't really work for me.
Then I invite listeners to ask God, ask him to
show you, how did you create me to connect with you?
How did you create me to experience your love? Maybe
(25:26):
it's going for a walk in the forest and talking
to God out in nature. Maybe that's how you feel
closest to God. Or. Or maybe it's gathering with others
in corporate worship and singing your heart out, or sitting
quietly at the piano at home and playing some worship
songs to the Lord. There are so many different ways
(25:46):
that God invites us to come to Him in Jesus Christ.
I think as the body of Christ, we can do
a better job celebrating that diversity and the variety, rather
than comparing and trying to force people into a box
that never came from the Lord.
S1 (26:06):
Thanks for joining us today for the Building Relationships with
Doctor Gary Chapman podcast. Gary's the author of the New
York Times best seller The Five Love Languages. You can
find out more about your love language or our featured
resource by going to Building relationships.us. You'll see a link
there to the book by our guest, doctor Bob Paul.
(26:26):
It's titled Empowered to Love Discovering your God given Power
to create a marriage you both love. Just go to
building relationships.
S4 (26:35):
Us I Cherita you talk about devotional personalities and personality types.
How do you find out your devotional personality type?
S2 (26:47):
Well, that's a great question, Gary, and I'll be the
first to say that I don't have, like the authoritative
manual on this. It comes more so from my experience
of shepherding people throughout the last ten, 12 years. And
also I've learned a lot from Gary Thomas and his book,
Sacred Pathways, that different people connect to God in different ways.
(27:12):
And so as I've kind of been working on this
topic and thinking about delighting in the Lord and the
different ways that we can delight in him, I found
that people tend to fall in one of these five
general categories. I'll say like primary, devotional, personality type. I
(27:32):
think we all can feel close to God in these ways,
but you might be more likely to connect with one
than the other, so I'll go through them. But if
listeners are curious, we actually put together a quiz called
the Devotional Personality Type Quiz. It's absolutely free. Listeners can
find it at Delighting Angieslist.com. And we've had over 30,000
(27:54):
people take this quiz over the last couple of years.
So we've seen these results pan out again and again.
But I'll say that the five types that I find
people tend to relate to or lean into is those
who feel close to God in worship. I mentioned earlier
singing corporately or playing songs of of worship or hymns
(28:19):
at home. There's just something about song and more so
than song. Feeling like everything they do is an act
of worship and adoration, delighting in the heart of God.
So that would be our our radiant worshippers there, those
who feel close to God through the word and I.
I'm one of these. I affectionately call us word nerds.
(28:43):
When I learn something new about God in Scripture, my
whole face lights up. I feel like God just gave
me a nugget, an insight into who he is, and I.
I feel his love toward me. I feel his personal
revelation in Scripture. I love delighting in his revelation in
(29:03):
the word. And so there are people who will feel
close to God that way. We've got word nerds and
such a fun group. We could talk to you for
three hours about one theological concept and never tire out. Um,
and then we have those who feel close to God
in prayer, and I call these people the Whisperers. Um,
(29:23):
it's because there are in ongoing, continual conversation with the Lord,
whether it's in their quiet time with their prayer journal
and their bringing to God requests and interceding on behalf
of others, or they're praying as they're washing dishes, they're
praying as they're running errands, they just have a heart
posture of ongoing whispers with heaven. And also, these are
(29:47):
those who are more likely to hear God's voice whispering
back to them. I talked about the good Shepherd who
speaks to his sheep, and they hear his voice. They
recognize his voice. These are the people that you want
to go to and have in your life. When you
need intercession, when you need discernment, when you need someone to.
Would you beseech God with me? And what you'll notice
(30:11):
about all of these devotional personality types is they are
all needed in the body of Christ. So we need
to celebrate that we have word nerds and whisperers and worshipers,
but we can all grow in these rhythms as well.
It's just I think one of them might come easier,
or it might be dominant in our lives than others.
(30:31):
So we got the worshippers, the word nerds, the whisperers.
We have what I call the wonder chasers. And these
are those who feel closest to God when they experience
awe and wonder. It might be standing on a beach
and watching the waves crash in and just sensing the
grandeur of God and their own smallness. And it's in
(30:53):
that moment that they feel like they have this mountaintop
experience with God. It might be that they stand on
their front porch with a mug of coffee, watching the
sun rise or set and saying, oh, the beauty and
wonder of a creator who can paint the skies this way.
These are people who walk through life with eyes wide open.
(31:14):
And they see wonder wherever they go. They seem to
retain that childlike admiration for the fingerprints of God throughout
their lives, and not just nature, but in their own life.
They'll be the first ones to say you'll never guess
what God did. It feels like God's always moving in
their lives in a powerful way, and it's more so
that they're just awake to the wonder that God has
(31:37):
placed in each of our lives. So those are the
wonder chasers. And then the last ones, I'll say, are
those who feel predominantly delight in God, or sense his
presence and his delight in them as they walk out
obedience with God. So these are the the obedient walkers.
They're the ones who you might hear them say, well,
(31:58):
God's Spirit told me to call that person or God's
Spirit really just impressed on my heart that I need
to do this thing or I need to move in
this way. And there's just this sense in which they
are walking in step with the spirit. They're knowing where
God is moving in the room, where he's moving in
the world, and they're joining him in what feels like
(32:21):
such a personal way. And these are the ones who
are most likely to be active in the church, in
the community, they're more likely to be activists, to seek justice,
to to want to see God's kingdom come in the world.
They're not content with just reading their Bible and praying
and keeping their faith to themselves. They want to see
(32:41):
it move out into the world. So they're walking in
obedience with God in their own personal life and and
sometimes in a bigger way, too. So we have these
five devotional personality types, ways in which we experience God's
delight in us, and we delight in him in in return.
And I would argue, all of us need all of these.
(33:04):
Like we all need to be in the word. We
all need to experience the gifts of God through wonder
and delight in his heart through worship. I think Jesus,
when we look at the Gospels, he lived out all
of these rhythms of delight as well. But I'm sure
even as listeners, we're we're hearing me talk about these
five devotional types Hopes that they might find themselves kind
(33:26):
of gravitating toward one. So my encouragement would be, if
you're like, ah, I'm not sure which one is mine. Um,
there's that quiz that you can take, but also if
you feel like you're in a dry place spiritually, if
you feel like, gosh, I'm doing all the things, I'm
reading my Bible and going to church and praying, and
I just don't sense God's delight. Maybe he's inviting you
(33:46):
to lean into that one primary way that he wants
to express his delight toward you. Maybe it's time for
more walks outside, or it's time to really dig into Scripture.
That might be God's invitation to delight for you. Today.
S4 (34:02):
I think our listeners can identify with what you're saying there,
so let me encourage you. If you're listening, go to
that website Delighting in jesus.com and take that quiz, I
thank you. I think you'll find it helpful, but let
me change the subject. A.W. Tozer said that what comes
into our minds when we think about God is the
(34:23):
most important thing about us. Now you see that a
little differently. How would you respond to that idea?
S2 (34:31):
Well, I really love that quote by A.W. Tozer, actually.
And I see his point. I think how we view
God is so important, but it's actually I stumbled on
a quote by C.S. Lewis, actually, that he disagrees with A.W.
Tozer on this, and I found that exchange fascinating in
that I would say Lewis agrees. Yes, that what we
(34:53):
think about God is important. But Lewis would say What
God thinks about us is infinitely more important. We need
to think about what is God's posture toward us. Is
he an angry God? I mean, one of the most
influential sermons in American history is Jonathan Edwards Sinners in
(35:14):
the Hands of an Angry God. And in my own life, I.
I grew up thinking that God's primary disposition toward me
was one of expectation and, by implication, disappointment, that that
God had such high hopes for me. And here I go,
sinning again. Here I go, falling into the same temptation.
(35:36):
He must be so disappointed. He must be so angry.
And I think Tozer would agree in this that we
often type our view of God on our experience of
our own fathers. How we experience our fathers is often
how we view God. And so if we had fathers
who were angry, we're more likely to think that God
(35:58):
is angry. If we had fathers who would set aside
what they were working on to turn toward us. When
we walked in the room to greet us with compassion
and excitement, if they wanted to listen to what we
had to say about our day, then we're more likely
to think that God's disposition toward us is that he
wants to hear from us, that he's eager to to
(36:19):
listen in prayer. So I think, yes, it's important how
we view God. And I think there's good work for
us to do to unpack how much of our theology
and how we view God is scriptural, and how much
of it is just what we've inherited from our culture
or our own experience growing up. But I would agree
with Lewis. I think more important is how God views us.
(36:43):
Is God's disposition toward us one of pity, one of
anger or disappointment, or is it something else? And this
was just such an incredible journey for me to go
through Scripture to study this theme from Genesis to Revelation.
I actually went through and read through the Bible. Not
(37:03):
in a year. It took like 18 months for this project,
but I read through the Bible cover to cover, underlining
every single time the words joy or happiness or delight
or celebration showed up. Actually, one of the Hebrew words
for Blessed Asher is also translated happy. It means a
profound happiness is what? Blessed means. So I would look
(37:26):
up those verses and cross-references as well. And as I
did this deep dive into the theme of joy and
happiness in Scripture, what I found is that God's disposition
toward us is not one of pity. It's not one
of anger or judgment, but rather the Lord, the Lord,
compassionate and gracious and kind, that he has toward us
(37:50):
a heart of love and joy and delight, that again
and again that is who God presents himself to be.
He says, I don't delight in the death of the wicked.
I don't delight in punishing my children. Even discipline comes
from a heart of love and a longing to restore
to that place of joy and fulfillment. And I think
(38:11):
when we understand God this way, when we think God
actually cares about our joy. God actually longs for us
to experience the fullness of joy in his presence. That
changes then how we engage in these spiritual disciplines. It
changes how we set goals for our year. It changes
(38:33):
how we make decisions because then we want to experience
that love, the love of a God who delights in us.
I think it makes all the difference.
S4 (38:44):
Actually, many people view the Old Testament as a god
of anger and the New Testament a God of love.
How do you respond to that?
S2 (38:54):
Yeah. Well, again, if we take that to Scripture and say, well,
what does the Bible say? Does the Bible present God
as an angry, vengeful God in the Old Testament? Is
that true? And what we find is exactly the opposite.
There are hundreds of references to the God who delights
just a few of them, like Psalm 149, the Lord
(39:16):
takes pleasure in his people. He adorns the humble with salvation.
Psalm 18. He brought me out to a spacious place.
He rescued me because he delighted in me. Luke 15
I tell you, in the same way there will be
more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than
over 99 righteous people who don't need repentance. That is
(39:38):
God the Father who is celebrating the return of his children.
Zephaniah 317 the Lord your God is among you, a
warrior who saves. He will rejoice over you with gladness.
He will be quiet in his love. He will delight
in you with singing. And here's the thing we cannot
(39:59):
say that the Old Testament God is an angry God.
And the New Testament Jesus is a loving and kind
Jesus because they are one and the same. Jesus is
God the Father. Jesus and the Holy Spirit share in
these characteristics of love and joy and delight. In fact,
when Jesus came on the scene, he came to make
(40:21):
manifest God. He came to show us the heart of
the father. So what we see in Jesus, the one
who describes himself as gentle and humble in heart, the
one who opens up his arms and says to the children,
come to me like, let the children come to me. Don't,
don't stop them. The one who enjoyed a good party
(40:42):
and the one who would look out on on the
landscape and say, look at the birds of the air.
Look at the lilies of the field, that Jesus, that
is who the father is revealed to be, because Jesus
revealed to us the heart of the father. And so
the father then is the one who delights. I just
think we need to work so hard to hold on
(41:07):
to this image of an angry, vengeful God when we
read Scripture because the story from Genesis to Revelation is
the heart of a good God who longs to bring
his people and restore them back to relationship with him,
so they are one in the same. The God who
(41:28):
created humans longs to be in relationship, longs to restore
joy and delight. And when we look at revelation, it
is the promise of that, that joy fulfilled. It is
the promise that from Genesis what the God of the
Old Testament promised and what the Jesus of the New
Testament came to reveal that in revelation it will finally
(41:49):
be fulfilled. God will once again dwell with his people,
and we will be his people, and he will be
our God. And we will finally experience the the longing,
the fulfillment of that longing and what Jesus describes as
a wedding. It's going to be a celebration. It's going
to be a party. That is what the God the
(42:10):
Father and Jesus the Son and the Spirit of God
in us are all working toward that part of the story,
when all our hopes will finally be fulfilled in him.
S4 (42:24):
Ashreeta much in your new book combines recent brain science
with deep biblical study. What does scientific discoveries have to
do with learning to delight in Jesus?
S2 (42:37):
That's such a great question, Gary. And it's part of
what's been the most fun research for this book, is
learning how God wired our brains, created our brains for joy. Uh,
and and what we're learning from brain science doesn't at
all contradict Scripture. If anything, God is the one who
created our brains. So what scientists are learning about neural pathways,
(43:02):
and a lot that I would love to share just
so much about this. But I just want to say like,
this is God's very good idea. And part of what
was just fascinating to me to learn was that God
created a part of our brains to be kind of
the Joy center. It's the right frontal cortex. It's right
(43:23):
above our right eyeball. And this is the place where
we can experience peace. We make rational decisions, we experience
joy and goodness and balance. And then there's another part
of our brain, the amygdala. It's kind of in the
back of our head that triggers our fight or flight response.
(43:43):
It's where we experience stress. And so when we're scrolling
our phones and there's bad news, when there's comparison, when
we're just kind of in that doom scroll mode, or
when we experience stress in our lives and our families
and our bodies, we will respond out of the amygdala.
And both of these parts of our brains will flood
(44:05):
our bodies with hormones. But what we've learned in recent
years is we are spending so much time in the amygdala,
we're spending so much time in that stressful part of
our brains that we're having a hard time coming out
of that. We're seeing increasing levels of depression and anxiety
and sleeplessness and insomnia. So many concerns about our mental
(44:30):
health and our physical health because we're living out of
the amygdala. And what I've learned is it doesn't have
to be that way. I personally found myself stuck in
the amygdala going back to the beginning of the interview,
when I said I found myself in that dark place.
That's where I was. And I share more about that
in in this book. But what brought me such hope
(44:51):
is we don't have to be stuck there just because
we find ourselves repeating patterns of pessimism or criticism or
bitterness or hopelessness or anxiety. We don't have to live
that way. God created our brains with the ability to
renew and rewire, and this is called neuroplasticity. The more
(45:12):
we repeat something, the easier it will become for our brains.
And so one way I call it the joy pathway.
One way for us to get from the amygdala in
the back of the brain, back to the right frontal cortex.
That joy center is through the rhythms that I share
in the book. Things like having our eyes open to
thank God for the good things in our lives. Celebrating
(45:33):
what we're learning about Jesus in Scripture. Even something as
simple as going for a walk in the morning and
allowing the sunshine to fill our lives with good things. Actually,
the the morning sun rays do something in our brains
where it helps set our circadian rhythm. I mean, all
of these might sound like, okay. Ashreeta what's the point here?
(45:54):
What's what's the connection is that all of these things
are simple habits that God gives us to restore joy.
And in my own life, as I started practicing these
simple joy, habits, rhythms of delight, ways in which to
receive the delight of God in my life. He started
(46:16):
rewiring my brain, and I found myself spending less time
in the amygdala, less time stressed and sorrowful, and more
time in a place of peace and tranquility and joy.
And all of that is possible because of how God
created our brains. And so this brain science that we're learning,
that I've based the whole of my book, these rhythms
(46:38):
of delight are based on brain science. And the Bible
is just saying, okay, this is what scientists are discovering,
and they're not quite sure what to do with it.
And yet God invites us to take what we're learning
in science and combine it with what he's shown us
in Scripture. And then that's how he's going to restore
our joy. That's how he's going to heal our bodies
and our hearts and our minds and our spirits. Those
(47:01):
who look to him for help, Psalm 34 says, will
be radiant with joy. No shadow of shame will darken
their faces. And that's what he has done in my life,
is what I want to shout from the rooftops. I
think it's the work that he wants to do in
our generation. And so that is my invitation to those
who are listening. Would you ask God to restore joy
(47:24):
in your life? He's going to do it through your brain.
He's going to do it through your life. He's going
to do it through community, through the local church, through Scripture.
But that is his heart posture to invite us to
delight in him.
S4 (47:35):
Let's read. I think our listeners can identify with that.
And let me just thank you for being with us today.
Delighting in Jesus. And I believe this book is going
to help a lot of people do just that. So
thank you again for writing the book. Thank you for
being with us today on building relationships.
S2 (47:54):
Thank you so much for having me, Gary. It's been
my joy to be here, and I so appreciate the
work that you've done that has led to more of
experiencing God's love in my own life. Thank you.
S3 (48:06):
A delightful guest today On building relationships, Asher read his book.
One of the reviews says this her words are a
cool breeze on a sweltering day. I hope that's happened
in your heart as you've listened today. Go to building
relationships us. You'll see more about delighting in Jesus rhythms
to restore joy. When you feel burdened, broken, or burned
(48:29):
out again, go to Building Relationships. Dot us.
S4 (48:33):
And next week, if you have a struggle in parenting
an adult child, don't miss our conversation.
S1 (48:40):
Doctor Chapman shares wisdom on your new life with your
adult children in one week. Our thanks to our production
team Steve Wick and Janice. Backing building relationships with Doctor
Gary Chapman is a production of Moody Radio in association
with Moody Publishers, a ministry of Moody Bible Institute.
UU (48:57):
Thanks for listening.
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