Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. ( Psalms 37:4 4 Delight thyself also in Jehovah; And he will give thee the desires of thy heart. )

The quest for pleasure is not even optional, but commanded (in the Psalms): “Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart” ( Psalms 37:4 4 Delight thyself also in Jehovah; And he will give thee the desires of thy heart. ).

The psalmists sought to do just this: “As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God” ( Psalms 42:1 Chapter 42 1 As the hart panteth after the water brooks, So panteth my soul after thee, O God. –2). “My soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water” ( Psalms 63:1 Chapter 63 1 O God, thou art my God; earnestly will I seek thee: My soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee, In a dry and weary land, where no water is. ).

The motif of thirsting has its satisfying counterpart when the psalmist says that men “drink their fill of the abundance of Your house; and You give them to drink of the river of Your delights” ( Psalms 36:8 8 They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house; And thou wilt make them drink of the river of thy pleasures. , NASB).

I found that the goodness of God, the very foundation of worship, is not a thing you pay your respects to out of some kind of disinterested reverence. No, it is something to be enjoyed: “Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good!” ( Psalms 34:8 8 Oh taste and see that Jehovah is good: Blessed is the man that taketh refuge in him. ).

“How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!” ( Psalms 119:103 103 How sweet are thy words unto my taste! `Yea, sweeter' than honey to my mouth! ).

As C.S. Lewis says, God in the Psalms is the “all-satisfying Object.” His people adore him unashamedly for the “exceeding joy” they find in him ( Psalms 43:4 4 Then will I go unto the altar of God, Unto God my exceeding joy; And upon the harp will I praise thee, O God, my God. ). He is the source of complete and unending pleasure: “In your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore” ( Psalms 16:11 11 Thou wilt show me the path of life: In thy presence is fulness of joy; In thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore. Psalm 17 A Prayer of David. ).