Almost 300 years ago Charles Wesley wrote the hymn, Jesus Lover of My Soul, acclaimed by John Telford in The Methodist Hymn Book Illustrated as “the crown of Charles Wesley’s work – one of the greatest hymns of the universal church.”

I learned this hymn as a youth, before beginning to share Wesley’s love for our Lord. At first I could sing it quite sincerely, for it really expressed my dependence on God more than my love for Him. Singing “hide me … leave me not alone … make and keep me pure within …” was perfectly simple, but there were two lines that soon began to give me pause.

“Thou, O Christ art all I want;                                                                                                     More than all in Thee I find…”

Gradually maturing in the faith, with Bible translations that brought God more into focus as a present Companion, I began to clearly see that my love for Him should be based on who He is, rather than on how He could bless me. Yet, it was still a verse about what God can do for us that led me to ask the direct question of how I could grow to truly love Him. The verse was Psalm 37:4, but I will also quote verse 3 for context. The New King James Version says:

“3. Trust in the Lord, and do good;
Dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness.
4. Delight yourself also in the Lord,
And He shall give you the desires of your heart.”

I had been trusting in the Lord and doing good; I had been ‘dwelling in the land’ (among His people) and feeding on His faithfulness. To my mind, I had even been delighting myself in Him, being by then as Charismatic as they come. Yet, the promise of verse 4 was apparently not being fulfilled for me, because some of my Godly desires didn’t even seem on their way to being granted.

Since God cannot lie, I knew the failure must be mine. As it seemed related to delighting myself in God, I asked, “Lord, please show me how to truly delight myself in You.”

When we ask God a question we may have to wait for the answer, and sometimes He sends us on a treasure hunt to find it. This time He answered immediately, by quoting Himself.

He said, “Remember John 1:1. ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.’ I am the Word. You cannot separate Me from My Word. To delight yourself in Me you must delight yourself in My Word.”

There it was, as clear as day. In all my years of knowing John 1:1 and learning how it identified Jesus as The Word, the relevance to Psalm 37:4 had never hit me before. Wow!  I knew I’d never forget the day that God spoke this to me.

Yes, I reasoned, it was true that I already liked reading the Bible, but had I ‘delighted’ myself in it? Was it sweeter than the taste of honey to my mouth? Was it more precious than the gift of daylight to my eyes? Did it make my spirit gleefully dance and prance, as praise music did? Was the call to Bible time with God as sweet as the call to fellowship with others? Was I as eager to learn and perform His Word as a newlywed is eager to master the love language of her husband? Finally, knowing that perfect love drives out fear (1 John 4:18) I faced the question, “Do I love God and His inseparable Word enough to proclaim Him and it ‘from the housetops’ without fear of consequences?”

Being honest with God by the grace of the Holy Spirit’s searchlight, I answered all these questions from my present tense viewpoint with “No.”

God, replying with His eye to the future, just said, “Not yet.”

That gave me hope. I had already learned that in Christ “I can do all things [which He has called me to do] through Him who strengthens and empowers me [to fulfill His purpose]…” (Philippians 4:13, Amplified Bible).

Surely ‘all things’ would include loving God as He desires to be loved, and who could better teach me that than God (The Word) Himself?  Since the time of those meditations, I’ve been on a prenuptial journey – learning to love God in His own love language so that, one glorious day, the Lover of My Soul will find His matchless love requited in me.