When Discipleship is Difficult, Start With Delight

by Aaron Armstrong

Photo by Charlie Wollborg on Unsplash

Don’t freak out.

That’s what I wish someone had told me when I was a new Christian and was first realizing that every believer’s role in making disciples also meant I had a role in making disciples. It’s not like this was a big secret, of course. After all, Jesus commanded his followers to teach others to “observe all things” he had commanded (Matt. 28:20 NKJV)—to make disciples. But when it hit home, it just felt like a lot. I didn’t know where to start. And what could a new believer like me offer others anyway? I didn’t know the first thing about the end times or election. I couldn’t tell you the difference between Arminians and Armenians.

Then it happened—a younger man asked me if I’d be willing to disciple him. Did I feel equipped or qualified? No. But I was willing to give it a shot. At that point, I was mostly familiar with Christians reading and discussing books together. So, that’s where I started. The problem was this guy wasn’t much of a reader. We tried talking through our progress in basic spiritual disciplines. That was a struggle too. We liked hanging out, and when we talked about Star Wars and pop music, conversation flowed easily. But the “discipleship” side of our relationship didn’t seem to be happening, at least as far as I could tell. I was frustrated, not with this younger man, but with myself. What was I doing wrong?

Why Does Discipleship Feel Difficult?

According to a 2022 study, 37 percent of American Christians don’t feel equipped or qualified to make disciples. Why? I suspect it’s because we’ve reduced our understanding of discipleship to structured education and obeying biblical commands.

In the first case, making disciples becomes teaching a Bible study, seminar, or Sunday School class. These are all good things, and I’m thankful for all the resources that exist to support them. But if we haven’t shown aptitude for formal teaching, it’s natural that we feel unqualified or ill-equipped.

In the second case, a caveat is required: Jesus does command us to teach people to obey his commands. Obedience to Christ isn’toptional. But we can focus on it to such a degree that if we struggle in any area of obedience—if we’re painfully aware of how prone our hearts are to wander—we consider ourselves unqualified to encourage others to pursue holy lives.

Start With—and From—the Heart

This was my problem: I was looking at discipleship from the wrong perspective. It hadn’t yet clicked that discipleship is more than education and obedience to biblical commands. Discipleship is a matter of the heart. It is about helping others love Who and what we love; learning to delight in the God who delights in us (Zeph. 3:17) as we become like Jesus from one degree of glory to another (2 Cor. 3:18). We want to help people not just know about Jesus but to abide in him (John 15:4). We want them to be deeply connected to the One who is our life (Col. 3:4). To be satisfied with him as we would be with the finest of foods (Ps. 63:5). This means discipleship starts with the heart—specifically, ours as disciple makers.

That’s one of the reasons I find Psalms so helpful. As much as the book of Psalms is about God, it is about our hearts. This book puts our hopes, fears, longings, anger, and joy on display in a deeply personal and profound way. It gives room for the unhinged mess that is us and invites us to bring that mess before the Lord.

There are psalms that show us how to sing and pray with joy, hope, and confidence in the Lord, as in Psalms 9, 23, and 63. Some, like Psalm 51, demonstrate a contrite and repentant heart. Some even remind us that God can more than handle our unfiltered fury at the evils committed by humanity, as our hearts long for him to do justice (Ps. 35, 59, 69, 109, 137). But, perhaps counterintuitively, it is Psalm 37 that reminds me most powerfully where the delight of our hearts resides.

Our Counterintuitive Foundation of Delight

Psalm 37 may be an odd choice to turn to when talking about delight and discipleship. After all, this pastoral psalm offers wisdom to God’s people as they see “evildoers” and “workers of iniquity” (v. 1 NKJV), men and women who reject the ways of the Lord—who even practice outright evil—yet seem to prosper. There is no judgment. God appears to be silent. For those watching all this happen, it’s hard not to become anxious, concerned, and angry—to answer evil with evil, and fight fire with fire. To this, the psalmist says, “Do not fret” (vv. 1, 7, 8 NKJV), or, perhaps more literally, “Do not get heated.” In other words: “Don’t freak out.”

Yes, the psalmist says, these workers of iniquity appear to be getting away with all manner of evil. And we still feel this today in so many ways. It’s hard to trust God when everything seems awful and the perpetrators of evil seem to face no consequences. But perception is not always reality. Instead, “Do not fret . . . Trust in the Lord, and do good” (v. 1,3 NKJV ). We must commit our way to him, and ourselves to his ways (v. 5). Rest in him (v. 7). Wait for him (v. 7, 9). Why? “For evildoers shall be cut off . . . For yet a little while and the wicked shall be no more; indeed, you will look carefully for his place, but it shall be no more” (vv. 9, 10 NKJV). We may not see what the Lord is doing, he says, but we can’t mistake that for inaction on his part. At the right time, he will act. And when he does, the workers of lawlessness will be no more. And as for the righteous? “But those who wait on the Lord, they shall inherit the earth . . . the meek shall inherit the earth, and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace” (vv. 9, 11 NKJV; cf. Matt. 5:5).

Delight, Discipleship, and Humility

“Delight yourself also in the Lord, and he shall give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:4 NKJV). To delight is to take pleasure, enjoy, or find satisfaction in someone or something. But to say we are to delight in God is not to wave away our fears and anxieties with a dismissive, “Don’t worry, be happy.” It is the Bible’s way of calling us back to who we are—of keeping us focused on the One we know can do something about those fears. It is building on Psalm 37’s ideas of trust, commitment, waiting, and rest. Delight is their culmination—of recognizing all the blessings we have in the Lord, not just in the sense of what he provides, but in giving himself. To be satisfied not in his stuff but in him. And this has the radical effect of humbling us. Of causing us to say with David, “What is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?” (Psalm 8:4).

It’s humbling. And that’s what we need as disciple makers. To be humbled because of how amazing God is to us. To marvel that God invites us to play any kind of role in another’s faith journey (John 4:35–38; 1 Cor. 3:6–8). And to acknowledge that, perhaps, our perceptions aren’t necessarily reality—that just because we can’t see what God is doing, it doesn’t mean he isn’t working through us.

The Encouraging Word I Needed

I wish I could say that once I realized this, it led to an instant and noticeable outward change in all the ways I’d been conditioned to think as a North American evangelical. But that is not actually how people work. Change takes time. Instead, here’s what it has done: It allowed me to be vulnerable in a way I didn’t know how to be before, for people to see the delight of my heart and open my heart to them. I wasn’t aware of this change in me until a dear friend spoke to me one Sunday after I had I finished preaching. He didn’t say anything about the content of the message. He said, “You know, your messages have always been good and true. But I really heard your heart in this. I felt like I was shepherded today.”

What a kindness from the Lord to receive that encouragement. And this encouragement, and this focus, are what motivate me to keep going—to not lose heart when things don’t go the way I plan, when I’m tempted to play the comparison game, or to fall back into the rut. I can try all kinds of tactics and replicate what others are doing. But it’s delight—my love for God—that really makes a difference. I pray it will be for you as well.

You’re More Qualified than You Think

Here’s the truth: Starting with delight doesn’t remove our doubts and fears about discipleship. We’re still going to struggle with feeling unqualified or ill-equipped. Our hearts are fickle and letting people see our hearts is risky. But this is what we are called to. We want to help others love Who and what we love—to delight in the God who delights in us. And to do that, we need to let others see our love for him. To see how we delight in who he says he is and how he is at work. To see us wrestle with questions and doubts and sit with us in our sorrows.

Discipleship is a matter of the heart. Start there. Trust in God. Delight in the Lord. He will give you the desires of your heart. He will use you to make disciples in ways you don’t expect and might never see.

Don’t freak out. You are more qualified than you think.

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Aaron Armstrong is the author of multiple books, including Faith Simplified: What We Believe and Why We Believe It. As an adult convert, Aaron writes to engage those curious about Christianity, encourage new believers, and equip those who come alongside them. For 20 years, he has served local churches as a preacher, small group leader, and children’s ministry leader. He and his wife, Emily, have three teenage children.