The Daily CHEW™
Moving God’s Love from Head to Heart for Christian Professionals
The Leader Who Actually Knows How to Be Alive in a Moment
You can picture him on that mountain. His daughter is laughing on his shoulders, the skyline stretches out below, and his face says something his calendar rarely allows: “I am here. I am not performing. I am not producing. I am simply receiving this.” There is no guilt in the moment, no mental tab open to Monday, just the unforced joy of being present with someone he loves in a place that is beautiful.
If Enjoyment is one of your primary SALVES drivers, you know this craving from the inside. SALVES names six core, God‑given heart drivers—Security, Acceptance, Love, Value, Enjoyment, and Significance—that shape how you see the world and respond under pressure. (If you are new to SALVES, the SALVES hub walks through how God’s love meets each driver. If you want to identify your own primary drivers, you can take the SALVES Core Drivers Assessment.)
A strong Enjoyment driver means your heart was designed with a deep longing to know “life with God holds real delight.” That longing is not frivolous or immature—it is a reflection of the God who created a world full of color, taste, laughter, and beauty, and who rejoices over His people with singing. When your Enjoyment driver rests in His love, it produces gifts that refresh everyone around you.
What Your Enjoyment Driver Looks Like at Its Best
When your Enjoyment driver is resting in God’s love, it becomes one of the most refreshing, life‑giving forces in any team, family, or friendship. Here is what others experience when your Delight‑shaped heart is operating from receiving instead of escaping:
- Contagious joy that lifts the room. You bring energy and warmth to environments that would otherwise stay flat and transactional. Your laughter is genuine, your enthusiasm is real, and people around you feel permission to enjoy what they are doing.
- Attentiveness to beauty and goodness. You notice things others miss—a sunset on the commute, a perfectly turned phrase in a meeting, a child’s expression, a well‑cooked meal. You receive these as gifts and your gratitude is visible. That posture of noticing is contagious.
- Gift of celebration. You are often the person who remembers to celebrate—a closed deal, a birthday, a milestone, a team win that would otherwise go unnoticed. You instinctively know that marking joy matters, and the people around you are richer for it.
- Capacity for rest that actually restores. When your Enjoyment driver is resting in God, you know the difference between numbing and refreshment. You choose rest that renews your body, your relationships, and your soul—and you model that for leaders who have forgotten how.
A founder with a strong Enjoyment driver takes his daughter to Stone Mountain on a Saturday. He does not bring his laptop. He does not check Slack. He comes home that afternoon and his wife says, “You look different—lighter.” He is. Not because he escaped his responsibilities, but because he received a gift from a generous God and let it do what it was designed to do: refresh him. That is Enjoyment at its best—and it flows directly from how God designed his heart.
Where This Driver Gets Twisted
The same Enjoyment driver that refreshes a room can quietly take the wheel when it leans away from God’s love and toward substitutes. This is not hedonism—it is what happens when a good, God‑given longing starts looking for delight in something smaller than God’s joy.
- Numbing instead of receiving. When your Enjoyment driver is depleted, it reaches for the fastest available relief—scrolling, snacking, spending, bingeing, or any habit that provides a quick hit of stimulation without actual renewal. The pattern feels like rest but leaves you emptier.
- Guilt around pleasure. Paradoxically, a strong Enjoyment driver can coexist with deep guilt about enjoying anything. You may feel that delight is selfish, that a good Christian should always be working or serving, and that any moment of pleasure needs to be “productive” to be justified. That guilt slowly starves the very driver God designed for joy.
- Restlessness in ordinary seasons. When life feels routine—same commute, same meetings, same rhythms—your Enjoyment driver can interpret the absence of excitement as evidence that something is wrong. You may chase novelty, change plans impulsively, or feel a low‑grade dissatisfaction that no vacation fully resolves.
- Using entertainment as avoidance. Your instinct for delight can become a way to dodge hard emotions. Instead of sitting with grief, frustration, or disappointment, you reach for something fun—not because you are enjoying it, but because feeling nothing is easier than feeling what is actually there.
None of these patterns make you shallow or undisciplined. They are simply your Enjoyment driver doing what it does when it forgets where its real delight lives.
When This Driver Feels Threatened: A Dashboard Light, Not a Verdict
You will know your Enjoyment driver is spiking when you feel the familiar grayness—a flatness that makes the day feel like a long to‑do list, an impulse to reach for relief rather than rest, a guilt when you do enjoy something, or a restless craving for “something more” that you cannot quite name.
That spike is not God handing you a verdict. It is a dashboard light on your heart, signaling: “I do not feel any real delight right now, and I need to remember where my true joy lives.”
“You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” (Psalm 16:11, ESV)
God makes known the path of life, and at the end of that path—and all along it—is fullness of joy. Not partial joy, not earned joy, not guilty joy. Fullness. Your Enjoyment driver was designed to drink from that well. When it spikes, you can recognize the signal and return to the God whose presence is where real delight lives.
“He will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.” (Zephaniah 3:17, ESV)
God does not just tolerate you—He rejoices over you. He exults over you with loud singing. He quiets you with His love. Your Enjoyment driver was designed to rest in that reality: you are delighted in by the God of the universe before you produce, perform, or earn a single thing today. When your Enjoyment driver spikes, it is simply asking you to come back to the One who is already singing over you.
Walking with God in Your Enjoyment Driver Today
Here are three simple practices for enjoying and stewarding your Enjoyment driver on real days.
Notice the spike and name it without shame
When you feel the grayness, the numbing impulse, or the guilt about rest, pause and say to God: “Father, my Enjoyment driver is loud right now. Thank You that this longing for delight is part of how You made me. I acknowledge that it is reaching for a quick fix instead of resting in Your joy.”
A tech founder notices that every evening this week has ended the same way—couch, phone, scroll, sleep. Nothing is wrong on paper, but a quiet flatness has settled in. Thursday night he catches it: “My Enjoyment driver is spiking. I am numbing, not resting.” He sets his phone across the room, sits on the back porch for ten minutes, and prays Psalm 16:11. He does not feel a rush of emotion, but something honest opens up—a willingness to receive the evening instead of escape it.
Use a 2–3 minute SALVES + CHEW in the moment
When Enjoyment spikes, walk through a quick CHEW (for a full explanation of the SALVES + CHEW workflow, see SALVES + CHEW: A Simple Way to Bring Your Deep Drivers into God’s Love Every Day):
- Confess what your heart is reaching for or avoiding.
- Hear Psalm 16:11 or Zephaniah 3:17.
- Exchange with the question: “If I really believed God’s love is joyful enough to rejoice over me with singing and generous enough to offer fullness of joy in His presence, how would that change the way I carry this craving for delight into my next hour?”
- Walk in one small step from that answer—a 10‑minute walk without earbuds, a meal savored instead of rushed, a bedtime prayer of thanks instead of a scroll, or five minutes of play with your kids without multitasking.
Enjoy the gift your Enjoyment driver gives others
On days when your Enjoyment driver is resting in God’s love, intentionally notice the good it produces. You are the one who brings laughter to a tense meeting. You are the one who remembers to celebrate. You are the one who gives others permission to rest by resting yourself. That is not self‑indulgence—that is your God‑given design operating as He intended. Thank Him for it.
A founder with a strong Enjoyment driver hosts a team lunch after a grueling project. No agenda, no debrief—just good food and real conversation. A junior team member says afterward, “That was the first time I felt like we were actually people, not just a project team.” He prays that evening: “Father, thank You for the way You designed me to notice and create joy. Thank You that my team felt refreshed because You were delighting in them through me. Help me enjoy this gift instead of feeling guilty about it.”
CHEW On This™: Enjoying and Stewarding Your Enjoyment Driver
Confess
Where has your Enjoyment driver been loudest in the last few days—and where has it been a genuine gift? Tell God both:
“Father, I recognize that my Enjoyment driver spiked when [name the moment—the grayness, the numbing, the guilt about rest]. I also see how You used it for good when [name a moment where your joy or celebration blessed someone]. I bring both the spike and the gift to You.”
Hear
“He will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.” (Zephaniah 3:17, ESV)
God rejoices over you right now—not after you finish the to‑do list, not after you earn a break, not after you prove you deserve delight. Right now. Your Enjoyment driver was designed to rest in that rejoicing, and when it does, it becomes one of the most refreshing, life‑giving gifts in your leadership and your life.
Exchange
If I really believed God’s love is joyful and generous enough to rejoice over me with loud singing and quiet me with His love before I produce a single thing today, how would that change the way I enjoy my Delight‑shaped heart and steward it for the people God has placed around me?
Walk
Choose one moment today where your Enjoyment driver is likely to show up. Before you enter it, take 30–60 seconds to pray:
“Father, You rejoice over me with gladness. Help me receive that and walk into this moment with real delight instead of numbing or guilt. And help me enjoy being the joy‑bringing, celebration‑creating presence You designed me to be.”
That single prayer before one real moment is your “with‑all‑you‑have” step for today. If this is the only thing you do from this blog today, it is enough.
Worship Response: Thanking God for a Heart That Craves Delight and a Father Who Sings Over You
Father, thank You for designing my heart with a deep craving for real delight. Thank You that this longing is not shallow or selfish but a reflection of the joy that lives at the center of who You are—the God who created beauty, laughter, feasting, and rest, and who rejoices over His children with loud singing. Thank You that when my Enjoyment driver spikes, You are not scolding me for wanting joy—You are drawing me back to the only joy that is full: Your presence. By Your Spirit, reshape how my Enjoyment driver leans, so that it rests more deeply in Your rejoicing love and becomes contagious joy, genuine celebration, and real rest for everyone You have placed around me. Help me enjoy this gift today and trust that the delight my heart craves was designed by You, modeled by You, and offered freely to me in Jesus.
With you on the journey,
Ryan
If you had to put this into one sentence for today, what would you say God is inviting you to rest in or return to?
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