Delight & Compassion

I have a bent toward asking, “This is nice… but when is the next shoe going to drop?”
Intentional compassion is bending me toward a different way of seeing the world.

Now, when I wake up to a rainy, gloomy, cold morning, I don’t think, “What a terrible day.”
I think: What a gift.
The trees are getting water.
The plants are resting from the constant blaze of the sun.
The creatures that need cold to hibernate are settling in.
And what a gift it is to live in this world where everything has a rhythm and a purpose I don’t control.

Every hour from 6 AM–9 PM, my phone dings with a simple reminder: Delight.
So I pause.
I look up from my work or the swirl of my life and notice one thing to delight in — a smell, a sound, a sight, anything that catches my breath for a second.

This summer, when I worked my way through the Psalms, I was stunned by how often Scripture mentions that God delights in us.
God doesn’t need an iPhone reminder to delight in us — God just does.
God delights in the compassion you offer someone.
God delights in the way you care for the world around you.
God delights in the small, quiet ways you show up.

So much so that there are little glimpses of that delight everywhere if we pay attention.

It’s getting harder for me to ask, “When is the next shoe going to drop?”
And easier to trust:
When the shoe does eventually drop (because it will), there will still be delight.
The sun will rise again.
There will be love again.
There will be an opportunity to offer compassion again.

For the rest of 2025, I’m leading my family in this practice too.
Every evening at dinner, I tell the kids the plan for the next day.
But for the next 39 days, I’m adding a new question: “What delighted you today?”

And honestly, what delighted you today?

Because when we see the world differently, we start to become different.
And this simple shift — this tiny doorway into delight — has opened up so much more compassion in me for others.