The glory of God is hidden in all things. – Steve Garness-Holmes
We want glory. We want joy. We want life to bring us good things and shiny happiness for every moment. With glory, joy, goodness and happiness defined by our own internal vision of what that means. We want God to be our cookie jar and deliver what we pray for in the way we pray for it. Anything less is a disappointment. I’m not judging anyone – it’s how I’ve lived as well. With expectations of what I want just waiting to be delivered, and when it isn’t I get disappointed.
The past 5 months I have gone on a pilgrimage with God. It has been a very, very difficult path to w
alk and it has taken me into places of darkness and danger which I did not know existed in my physical living and within my soul. As I continue on this path, it seems, like Buttercup in The Princess Bride, I have made it through the “fire swamp” and definitely through the “pit of despair” and sometimes I get weak knee’d wondering what is ahead. How will I get through any more of this? I am way too tired, weak, afraid and like Wesley(TPB), “I have been mostly dead all day”.
The truly amazing revelations which I have experienced over these past months are new revelations of the magnitude of God. Our faith is all about personal experience and my experiences have been vivid and dramatically life-changing. I have felt the heart of Jesus as he ached to show and share with Jerusalem (and the world) his love with his cry, ‘O Jerusalem, how often…but you would not”; I have experienced the heart of Mary as she stepped out-of-the-way and said, “Do to me what you have said”; I have connected to the truth of the Psalmist as he wrote, “Where can I go from Your Spirit? Where can I flee from Your presence”?; I have lain on the ash heap with Job as God spoke and said, “Where were you when I laid the foundations?” and I have found the truth of the faith that is pleasing to God, which is obedience. It is not about giving God things that I want. It is about the path that goes where I would not go myself, only from a heart of unconditional, passionate and unlimited love, and staying there in these hard places out of obedience, because of that love.
I have found that commitment and my obedience are my “reasonable service”. I have had no place to go and God has been in that non-place with me. I have never been alone and I have not gotten safely through because I am so brave and strong. God has brought me every breath.
As this New Year gets into full swing, my prayer is for God’s wisdom. Everything I knew before has been upset like the proverbial apple cart, and I am undone. I am weak and tired. I am humbled and I am open to what God has prepared for me to do, as I continue to be obedient and offer my life as a love song.
| The Wise Ask God for Wisdom by Rick Warren |
| “If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him.” (James 1:5 NIV)
Need wisdom? We all do. And the good news is that God wants to give it to you. He is eager to do so. Just like it pleased God when Solomon asked for wisdom (1 Kings 3:7-14), it pleases God when we ask for wisdom. It’s God’s nature to give. He is a giving God. The Bible says in James 1:5, “If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him.” (NIV) This verse says three things about how God gives wisdom. He does so:
|
life: acoustic & amplified 