A SPECIAL MESSAGE FROM STEPHANIE:
I want to share a special invitation with you. You may have heard that I will be releasing my first book with IVP on July 28, 2026. It’s a big deal and I am so overwhelmed with God’ goodness in allowing me to share such an essential message about delighting in Him as the true essential foundation for all our spiritual growth and maturing. Truly, when we delight in the Lord, He promises to give us the desires of our hearts – namely, more of Himself!
So, here's the invitation. If you feel this message is indeed important, and you know people – including yourself perhaps – who need to be encouraged to awaken and cultivate their delight in God, would you consider joining my book launch team? It’s a great and super easy way to share the good news of God's love for us in Christ, Jesus, our Lord.
**If you’re interested, please go togospelspice.com/awakendelightand find the section about joining the launch team, or email me at contact@gospelspice.com **
Together, let’s encourage everyone we know with the wonderful news that, in Christ, God delights in us and invites us to delight in Him!
Stephanie Rousselle welcomes returning guests Andi Ashworth and Charlie Peacock for a reflective and practical exploration of what it means to delight in God—especially in the ordinary and difficult seasons of life.
Delighting in God is a daily discipline rooted in noticing, gratitude, humility, and relational engagement. Andi Ashworth and Charlie Peacock illustrate that wonder and joy can be found at “the molecular level” of life, as we learn to see reality with the eyes of heaven.
Cultivating delight in God starts with intentional attention—slowing down to observe and appreciate even the small gifts in daily life. Andi Ashworth describes how, after a busy season promoting their book, she cultivated a new practice: sitting quietly in her small perennial garden, reading Scripture, praying, and simply noticing the details of creation—birdsong, blooming flowers, the work of bees. Over time, this intentional noticing awakened deeper gratitude and joy in the presence of God, even as life’s hardships persisted.
Delight is a daily practice, a choice to “step into reality” and seek God’s presence even in suffering. This deliberate practice transforms pain into moments of worship and gratitude. Charlie Peacock shares that delight in God is not dependent on favorable circumstances or feelings of happiness. Suffering—including his chronic headache of nearly ten years—taught him to seek and experience God’s presence regardless of pain. He emphasizes that true delight must be able to exist within difficulty, or it is not truly delight.
Intimacy and delight with God are relational and participatory. God invites us to pursue Him, and as we do, He meets us. Sometimes we wait passively for God to manifest delight, and other times we strive to create it in our own strength. In reality, pursuing delight is a “dance”—God initiates and leads, but we must actively respond and show up, especially when delight seems elusive.
Hardships, while unwelcome, often become ministers of grace, rooting us in humility and expanding our capacity for love and presence. Through chronic pain and other challenges, both Andi Ashworth and Charlie Peacock have experienced God’s grace and a deepening humility. Charlie Peacock notes how his “thorn” limits self-reliance and ambition, drawing him toward greater dependence on Christ and shaping him into Christ’s likeness. Andi Ashworth observes that their limitations have expanded their hearts and increased their compassion for others.
Never outgrow asking your good Father for small joys. Delight in God blossoms in those who cultivate grateful, attentive hearts. Both guests encourage maintaining childlike wonder and gratitude—even for small blessings like a hot shower, a well-timed parking space, or serendipitous tickets to an event. These moments, prayed for and received as gifts, reinforce God’s goodness and nearness.
Practices to Foster Delight
- Start each day with gratitude for basic abilities and provisions.
- Notice small joys—in nature, family, daily routines—and thank God specifically.
- Pray about “matters of mutual concern”: what matters to God, matters to us.
- Accept and embrace limitations as invitations to deeper dependence and presence.
Reflection question: What small gift might God be inviting you to notice—and delight in—today?
MORE ABOUT "AWAKEN DELIGHT" BY STEPHANIE ROUSSELLE
"Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart." This is God's promise to you in Psalm 37:4. But many believers quietly assume it's just a poetic suggestion, or it doesn't really work here on earth.
In Awaken Delight, Stephanie Rousselle invites you to rediscover what Scripture actually means by delight in God. It's not emotional hype or religious performance, but a steady satisfaction rooted in who God is.
Through biblical theology and practical rhythms, you'll learn how delighting in God
- reshapes suffering
- quiets restless striving
- anchors your identity in God's unshakable delight of you
Learning to delight in God is the quiet revolution that reshapes how we endure pain, love others, and understand our own hearts.
Awaken Delight is a theologically grounded spiritual formation book for thoughtful believers who feel spiritually fatigued and are ready to embrace the reality of Psalm 37:4.
More at https://www.gospelspice.com/awakendelight
DISCOVER THE BOOK BEHIND THE PODCAST | "Awaken Delight" by Stephanie Rousselle
"Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart." Psalm 37:4 isn't a poetic suggestion — it's a promise. But many believers quietly assume it doesn’t really work, or it's not really possible here on earth.
In Awaken Delight, Stephanie Rousselle invites you to rediscover what Scripture actually means by delight — not emotional hype, not religious performance, but a steady satisfaction rooted in who God is.
Delight in God isn't a mood to manufacture; it's a relationship to receive.
Through biblical theology and practical rhythms, you'll learn how communion with God reshapes suffering, quiets restless striving, and anchors your identity in something unshakable.
Delighting in God isn’t sentimental optimism. It’s deeply rooted in Christ, Jesus.
It’s the quiet revolution that reshapes how we endure pain, love others, and understand our own heart.
Awaken Delight is a theologically grounded spiritual formation book for thoughtful believers who feel spiritually fatigued and are ready to embrace the reality of Psalm 37:4.
More at https://www.gospelspice.com/awakendelight
Purchase the book, "Awaken Delight" by Stephanie Rousselle: https://a.co/d/0bqhUb5J
- Kind words from Jennifer Rothschild, Bible teacher, Author, Speaker, Podcast Host, Founder, Fresh Grounded Faith: “Stephanie helps us awaken to and experience true delight. It is a rich mix of God’s delight in you and your delight in him. This is the life you were made for, the life your soul deeply longs for. So, the table is set. Pull up a chair and let your heart sit alongside Stephanie. As your delight in God wakes up and becomes fully realized, you’ll find a satisfaction in Christ that makes you want more and more.”
- Kind words from Amanda Jenkins, Lead creator of THE CHOSEN's literary content: "I have yet to meet another person quite as eager to intimately know Jesus as Stephanie is. Her enthusiasm for the beauty found inside a thriving relationship with her Savior is downright contagious. Indeed, Stephanie’s joy and faith and commitment to growth—along with her love for really good food!—will implant themselves in the hearts of readers. Lucky readers."
- Kind words from Os Guinness, Theologian, Social critic, Author, The Call: "Stephanie addresses one of the greatest needs of Christians today. Knowing God is not knowing about God, but knowing Him genuinely and with desire and delight. She does so practically and helpfully, and in a style that sparkles with a verve and joy that is distinctively French."
- Kind words from Pippa Gumbel, Pioneer, The Alpha Course; Author, The Bible in one year with husband Nicky: "Stephanie’s love of God is inspiring and infectious. Her book is an invitation to share in that delight and to come to know God in new and wonderful ways."
More at https://www.gospelspice.com/awakendelight
Purchase the book, "Awaken Delight" by Stephanie Rousselle: https://a.co/d/0bqhUb5J
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