Shine

When I see the darkness in me,
Brighter the light you shine.
When I search for darkness in you,
Dimmer the light that’s mine.

Order

Our God is not confusing or complicated. He is the God of peace and He’s put things in order for us. In today’s world man wants to order everything for himself; we film life and arrange it to tell the story we want, we take pictures and edit them, we even rearrange scripture to use it to our benefit.

Life is often difficult and can be confusing but God is here to help us simplify, to gain perspective and to make sense of it all. His sense not ours.

What’s Another Word for Overwhelmed the Good Way?

God’s goodness and everything that goes in that, has been so overwhelmingly evident lately it’s almost beyond understanding. Walking through life with Him is the greatest adventure and please forgive my excitement but I can’t help but wish the same for you. He loves you so much.

Lived Out

Ephesians 1:9 says, He made known to us in all wisdom and insight the mystery of His will, according to His purpose which He set forth in Christ. I came across this verse yesterday while reading E. Stanley Jones’ In Christ and what I love about it is that it clearly lets us know that there’s no huge mystery in understanding God’s will. That Jesus is His will, not spelled out, but lived out. That’s not to say we are to go around “acting like Jesus”, but rather that the relationship that Christ has with The Father is the same relationship He wants for us. The things that we can have in common are intimacy, the peace and security that Christ has no matter the circumstance and the ever-increasing ability to trust. The rest will be as unique as each of us. God’s will looked at through Jesus spells “Love”.

Singular

The love that God has for us and thus the love we’re called to share with others is completely unique, one of a kind. Think about yourself for minute. If God loves you because He made you, does that fulfill your greatest need? What if His love is only because you received His Son or are part of some group? If that were the case for me I wouldn’t feel loved at all. I’d feel herded, insignificant, essentially unloved. Understanding this makes life the incredible adventure God intended. Imagine the significant opportunity of every encounter we have with each other. Consider the things to be shared and learned. Think of the joy or pain that doesn’t have to be experienced alone. That’s God’s love and we’re the ones that know it and get to share it.

Pissed Off

Can you say that when talking to The Lord? Hell yes. There is nothing He can’t handle with or from us. Being angry with God should not be an excuse to avoid Him it should draw us closer. We have nothing to fear, we can be completely honest with Him. In fact that’s exactly what He’s looking for in our relationship. I don’t doubt scripture when it says we can count it all joy… but that’s not always our first stop. Sometimes we have to wrestle with Him to get there and wrestling is part of the intimacy we need. Nothing builds trust like being able to take anything to Him and getting His perfect love and understanding back.

Reason

Here we take another look at the deist’s view of God and how we can connect with them. Reason is a huge part of this outlook on God. The deist has reasoned from his observation of nature that there is a Creator but that He is not involved in what goes on here any longer. This creates a big question for me, “Why did He make us? What was (is) His reason?” And as I have asked this over the years, the only explanation that makes any sense is that He wants to interact with us. Not just through scripture or in tough times but everyday, even in the littlest things. Each of us that know Him have stories to tell that can’t be dismissed and through our experience others get to be introduced to or encouraged to better know God. Motive is a really big deal in understanding the people in the world around us. It’s an even bigger deal in understanding the One that made us.

How real is God?

Over the next several days let’s take a look at some of the varying degrees we allow God into our lives. Everyone has a perception of God and that view affects us immensely. I know God’s desire is for our understanding of Him to increase no matter what we believe today and that He wants this understanding to grow into knowing Him on a very personal basis. It’s possible for our connection with Him to be the deepest and most honest relationship we could possibly know. So let’s see where we are with God as well as where others may have Him so we can draw closer while helping those around us get nearer too.

Paradox

Father your patience for me is astounding. I fail you regularly yet your love and understanding never waiver while I find it hard at times to wait for you when you have never failed me. Lord please help me rest in your faithfulness, trust in your timing and show your patience to others.

Simple

Really, God is simple? Theologians will tell you that God’s attribute of simplicity means that He is not made up of the sum of His parts. We’ve been saying this; He’s not sometimes this and sometimes that like we can be. He just is and He is all the time. But I think God’s simplicity is more than that. Scripture tells us that He is not the God of confusion however we imagine Him as complicated far too often. Unfortunately we think this way because it makes it easier to ignore what His desire is for us. I love this quote from Soren Kierkegaard:

“The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand we are obliged to act accordingly.”

By attaching complexity to God we create religion. It becomes easy for us to leave the work of the Kingdom to the professionals, to put the Pastors and Priests between He and us. We become content with showing up each week and having just a little bit more of the mystery unraveled for us so that someday we will be able to be and do what God wants. Most often someday never comes. Today is the day, right now is the only time we can be with God. He is the God of the present and His greatest desire is for us to join Him in it, not to put it off.

For clarity’s sake I need to point out that there’s always more of God for us to know. His depth is infinite. But this is the kind of knowing that is personal not to be confused with understanding, which is intellectual. Sorry I got a bit wordy today. I so want each of us to get this or more accurately, get Him. His love for you brings me to tears.