Enjoying God

“Come, taste and see that the Lord is good.” (Psalm 34:8)

At first glance, this verse sounds disarmingly simple. The verbs are short and concrete: come, taste, see. Yet the more one considers them, the more the invitation begins to unsettle. How can a person truly enjoy God, who is at once fire and breath, thunder and whisper, judge and lover, king and friend? How can a finite heart delight in One whose presence both consoles and terrifies? I know this is something that I often struggle with. We hear so much about obedience, and following rules, and doing particular things and living in a particular way; but, ultimately, aren't we also called to enjoy God? 

The Bible offers no single image to satisfy that question. It speaks instead through a gallery of portraits, each one dazzling and incomplete. To know God is to stand among these shifting lights, to feel the contradictions rub against one another until they produce a deeper harmony. Enjoyment, in this sense, is not a shallow pleasure but a reverent participation in mystery. But, deep and at its center, our faith is built on joy and enjoyment. 

I've picked a few different characters of joy that we can find in God. I've given an overview here, and I'll dig into each of them more over the next few weeks.

God the Creator: Wonder and Surrender

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” Out of nothing, being bursts forth, and the Creator surveys it all with delight. Light separates from darkness, waters gather into seas, and the breath of God stirs the dust into a living soul. To enjoy the Creator is to live with eyes open to this continual gift of existence. It means noticing the pulse of creation as an unending act of divine joy.

Psalm 104 describes a world alive with God’s laughter: clouds as chariots, winds as messengers, springs welling up in valleys. The Creator does not merely command order; He rejoices in it. Yet the same voice that sings life into being also roars in Job 38, asking, “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?” The invitation to delight is inseparable from a warning against possession. We are guests in God’s world, and our enjoyment must always be laced with awe.

God the Shepherd: Rest and Shadow

Psalm 23 gives us one of Scripture’s gentlest visions. The Shepherd leads beside still waters and restores the soul. To enjoy such a God is to surrender the restless striving that defines so much of human life. The sheep does not chart its own path; it learns the slow rhythm of trust.

Yet the psalm does not end in the meadow. It carries us into “the valley of the shadow of death,” where the Shepherd’s rod and staff become instruments of courage. Joy, here, is not the absence of fear but the quiet awareness of companionship in spite of it. The same hand that brings us to rest also steadies us when the light fades. Enjoyment of God, therefore, includes the ability to feel God's companionship and to understand what that companionship means, even when walking through the metaphorical valley of the shadow of death.

God the Lover: Desire and Fire

When the Song of Songs speaks of love that is “strong as death,” it dares to describe divine intimacy in the language of human desire. “My beloved is mine, and I am his.” Early Christian mystics heard in these verses the soul’s longing for union with God, a yearning that refuses to be reduced to intellect or duty.

But this Lover is also fierce. In Exodus 34, God names Himself as jealous, demanding fidelity within covenant. The word sounds uncomfortable, yet it reveals the depth of divine passion. To enjoy God in this character is to consent to being known completely, even where such knowing burns. Joy in this form is inseparable from surrender.

God the King: Majesty and Mercy

Isaiah saw the Lord enthroned, the hem of His robe filling the temple, smoke swirling around the pillars while seraphim cried, “Holy, holy, holy.” Overwhelmed, the prophet cried out, “Woe is me, for I am undone.” This vision strips away any illusion of mastery. In the presence of the King, human self-sufficiency collapses.

And yet, from that same throne, mercy descends. A coal touches Isaiah’s lips, and his guilt is removed. The One who exposes also heals. To enjoy the King is to bow low, not in humiliation but in gratitude, knowing that divine authority is always joined to compassion. Joy arises when reverence and trust meet, when awe gives way to peace.

God the Parent: Tenderness and Discipline

Scripture often speaks of God as a father who teaches His children to walk and as a mother who cannot forget the child of her womb. Isaiah pictures God comforting as a mother comforts; Hosea imagines God bending down to feed a restless child. The love of the divine Parent is both fierce and gentle.

Yet this same Parent disciplines those He loves, shaping them toward holiness. To enjoy God in this mode is to experience belonging that includes correction. It requires faith that even the painful edges of life are held within mercy. Such enjoyment matures into trust that the One who wounds also restores.

God the Friend: Companionship and Mystery

In John 15, Jesus tells His disciples, “I no longer call you servants… but friends.” The infinite Word who was present at creation now sits at a table and shares bread. Friendship with God does not eliminate transcendence; it deepens it. The God who commands storms into silence also listens to ordinary voices.

To enjoy this friendship is to find the sacred woven into the ordinary: The warmth of a shared meal, the quiet of prayer, the strange consolation of being fully known. Friendship with God invites both intimacy and astonishment, for the One who walks beside us is still the One who sustains the stars.

The Paradox of Enjoyment

Each image reveals truth, yet none can stand alone. The Creator inspires wonder, the Shepherd steadies fear, the Lover enflames desire, the King commands reverence, the Parent nurtures and corrects, and the Friend remains near. When we hold these portraits together, they resist collapse into a single likeness. Enjoying God means accepting the tension rather than resolving it.

The psalmist captures the paradox succinctly: “Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling.” (Psalm 2:11) The two imperatives belong together. Our delight grows richer when it includes reverence, and our reverence becomes whole when it is suffused with joy. To enjoy God is to inhabit that delicate space where love and awe intertwine.

Living the Enjoyment of God

The Westminster Catechism teaches that humanity’s chief end is “to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.” The statement sounds serene, yet it points to a demanding way of life. True enjoyment of God involves more than private emotion; it requires a posture of attentiveness to the divine presence that saturates the world. It means allowing gratitude to reshape desire, wonder to soften cynicism, and obedience to become a form of joy.

In this sense, enjoyment becomes a vocation. We learn to delight in the ordinary as the stage upon which grace appears: the neighbor’s laughter, the stillness of morning, the hard mercy of confession, the bread and wine offered in trembling hands. To enjoy God is to recognize that every fragment of life participates in divine generosity.

The psalmist’s words remain the final prayer:

“Whom have I in heaven but You?
And there is nothing on earth I desire besides You.” (Psalm 73:25)

To live by that confession is to discover that the One who terrifies also comforts, that glory and tenderness are not opposites, and that the strange joy of knowing God is the beginning of eternity itself.