FaithVenture

Hello, dear friends!

May the grace and peace of God be with you today as you strive to practice the presence of God in your daily life.

So how have you changed lately?  For me, it has been in more freely expressing my frustrations with life to God and admitting that most of them are the result of my selfishness and desire to be in control.  Thus, God has challenged me to not only admit my frustrations and why I am frustrated, and work at surrendering those issues and aspects of my life to God. To trust Him, His direction, and wisdom, His sovereignty to do what is best for me in the here and now and in the long run.  But enough about me.

As I walked through Brother Lawrence’s journal thoughts, I came upon this challenging thought:  “The foundation of spiritual life, for me, has been a high image of God and a high esteem of God. . . Once this has been well conceived, I have had no other care but to faithfully reject every other thought in order to perform all my actions for the love of God.”  (p.51)

Which is bigger:  the sun or the moon?  How about this: the clouds or the sun?  Seems like a silly question:  everyone knows it’s the sun.  Then why is it that sometimes we can’t see the sun because of the moon?  You know like a solar eclipse, where the moon passes between the orbit of the sun and the earth, causing the sun’s light to be blocked by the moon.  Or, having lived in the Puget Sound area for a number of years, those days on end where we only see clouds and not the sun, such that we wonder where it is.  The moon and the clouds just seem bigger because they are closer to us and keep us from seeing the full power and presence of the sun.

So, how big is your God?  How would you describe Him? Take a moment and think on this, writing down the first four or five words that come to mind. . . . it’s ok, I’ll wait . . . got them written yet . . . ok, times up, I got to get this thing written, you know.  What words did you write down?  Words like unconditional love; omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent? The question is not “how big are your words for God,” but “how big is your God?”  How about faithful, loving, kind, providing, caring?  Again, how big is your God?
Now, think about all that troubles your mind; that which consumes your thinking; that ignites your frustration, your anger, your passions. Those situations, issues, people that appear to be blocking you from seeing God. Is God big enough to handle what is dearest to your heart? 

If God is truly this high image and esteem of God; if God is truly awesome and big; if we truly believe these words about God; then by taking time to focus on God continuously throughout my day– not just daily but hourly, even minutely – then we would be able to “reject every other thought in order to perform all my actions for the love of God.”  If I truly believe God is big, then the worries and stresses, the frustrations and the pressures, while very real and present, don’t seem as large and insurmountable and overwhelming like the clouds and the moon because my God really is big enough to handle them. 

With this high esteem of God, of His love, of His power, of His grace; I am then free to talk, act, and work, to “perform all my actions for the love of God” because I know my God, the one and only God, is more than worthy of my life and my cares, my love and my praise because He is big enough to care for it all.
How big is your God?  May your esteem and image of God grow so that it overtakes the shadow of the struggles you face.

Pastor Tony J.