“The place God calls you is the place where your deep gladness
and the world’s deep hunger meet.”
– Christian author and writer Frederick Buechner

My partner, Jason J. Wang, is a contestant on the FOX television show MasterChef that airs Wednesday nights at 8/7c!

As of this posting, Jason has made it through two elimination rounds and is in the Top 18. I invite you to tune in to see how he does! You can also follow his public Facebook page where he is posting videos, pictures, and reactions on his MasterChef journey.

Jason is not a professional chef. He is a music teacher at Newton South High School in Newton, Massachusetts where he conducts the orchestra and assists with the symphonic band. Food is his delight. As I watch him cook, I’m reminded of an artist. The plate is his canvass and the variety of foods he uses the paint in which he creates masterpiece dishes.

Frederick Buechner suggests that God calls us to places where our deep gladness meets the world’s deep hunger. I call this the delight of Christian life.

Think of this: God creates each of us with unique gladness and passions, and then through faith in Jesus Christ as a gift of the Holy Spirit, calls us to use our gladness and passions to glorify God by loving and serving our neighbors!

Sometimes I think Christians get too obsessed with the duties of Christian life. It is true that the Christian life contains duty. We have obligations as parents, spouses, employees, neighbors, and citizens. We have responsibilities to support local congregations through commitments of time, talents, and financial support. Meeting our duties is not always fun.  It often involves sacrifice, discipline, and hard work.

God, however, is Lord of both our duties and delights. By grace through faith, we are bold to see God reshaping and reforming the world exactly through our delights!

Several years ago, Congressman Barney Frank was the keynote speaker at a social event of the Beantown Softball League, Boston’s softball league for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender athletes. Congressman Frank affirmed that in our play, in simply doing something we enjoyed, we were doing advocacy work just as important as protesting, advocating for policy changes, or challenging laws through court cases. We were creating on a micro level the open and inclusive society we longed for at a macro level. Our delight was reshaping the world.

What are your delights? What excites you? What are your passions? Where does your deep gladness meet the world’s deep need? How is the Holy Spirit calling you by grace through faith to see your delights as an important part of the world’s healing?

Alive in Christ, awash in grace, and empowered by the Holy Spirit, let us boldly encourage one another in our delights! In faith, let us claim the way in which these delights, as they meet the world’s great need, witness to Christ’s grace reshaping and reforming the world!

+NDP