shouts of joy

Came across a sweet memory in my inbox tonight. I had sent myself this email back in 2010, my second year teaching 6th grade in Korea. I'm guessing I quickly wrote it down during a break so I could transfer it to my journal later. So thankful for emails and journals to remember these moments by...

Today we talked about the word 'dignify' during spelling class. It's one of our vocab words for this week so I asked my kids where they've heard that word before. I sang the chorus of Undignified for them and then talked about what it meant to be 'undignified' --> crazy, no pride, just worshiping God. Aaron asked this question: "You know how if someone does something nice for you or keeps saying your name? And you can get shy? If we keep saying His name, does He like it? Is God shy?" 

Precious.

God brought to my mind the verse in Zephaniah that I have written on a post-it on my computer. I grabbed it and read, "God takes great delight in you! He quiets you with his love.  He rejoices over you with singing!" (Zeph. 3:17b).  We talked about how "with singing" actually means "with shouts of joy."  God actually cries out in joy over His creation! Pretty amazing.

So to answer his question, no, God isn't shy. He dances and sings and shouts His love over us, so we should do the same when we worship Him. He delights in our praise.

What a beautiful teaching moment.

Thanks, God.