Overcome

Saturday I was enjoying cleaning my house while listening to soothing music. I used to hate to mop, until I began putting inspiring music on first. The kids were busy elsewhere; I think they all have slipped one too many times, so now they steer clear when they see my mop come out. :) I never had that "problem" before Melaleuca. It's a good one to have. ;)

I was happily mopping away when one of my favorite songs of all time came on..."Exceeding Abundantly."

"As a father longs to shower his children with love,
So God yearns to show His power, raining blessings from above.
Though He bids us seek His face our heart's desires to implore,
We often fail to comprehend all the riches He has in store.

Exceeding abundantly above all we think,
Exceeding abundantly far beyond all our dreams.
Our God is far greater than our minds can explore.
Exceeding abundantly what we ask and so much more.

There are days when we murmur about God's design,
But the past quickly reminds us God's been faithful every time.
His grace leaves us speechless, astonished, and amazed.
We're overwhelmed by gratitude at the mercy that He displays.

All we ask, all we think, all we hope, all we dream,
Exceeding abundantly what we ask and so much more."

I had to stop as the tears began to fall. All I could do was say "thank you, Lord" over and over again. There were no other words to describe how grateful I am for all that God is, all that He has done, and all that He will continue to do.

Do you realize what a great God we serve? He is so wonderful, so good, so just, and amazing that we can't even begin to comprehend it. The Bible says that "eye hath not seen, ear hath not heard, neither hath entered into the heart of man the things that God has prepared for them that love Him."

I was reading a book by Curtis Hutson recently where he told of a great preacher (I think it was Spurgeon) who was walking along one day when he fell on his face and begged God not to show him anymore of His greatness and glory lest he die. That's how I felt to a small degree. I didn't think I could take anymore. I was overcome with all that God is.

There is nothing that He can't do.

He parted the Red Sea.

He parted the Jordan River.

He made the walls of Jericho fall down.

He defeated all the Israelites foes for them when they were obeying Him. The Israelites went out to battle, but it was the Lord who put the fear of Israel into the hearts of the enemy, and the Bible says several times that they didn't have to do anything except run when God told them to run. Sometimes they were chasing and sometimes they were running away, but God smote the enemy in the "hinder parts" Himself. God knows what He's doing. And He has a sense of humor about it. :)

He enabled little David to smite Goliath.

I could go on and on. There is not one thing that my God cannot do. Not one.

Sometimes it's easy for me to marvel at Israel's lack of faith. Especially when they were in the wilderness. They had a cloud to follow by day, a pillar by night, God gave them manna from heaven, water mysteriously flowed out of rocks when they were thirsty, their clothes and shoes never wore out, not to mention all the miracles He did to deliver them from the Egyptians, and they still provoked God with their lack of faith.

We often think that we would believe if God would only give us something concrete to believe in such as the cloud or pillar, but God knows better. He wants our hearts. Signs didn't work for the Israelites and before God delivered them from the Egyptians the Bible says that God respected the children of Israel. I don't think that God has any reason whatsoever to respect you and I today. In our whole lives we will never work as hard as the Israelites did in Egypt. They were faithful in the face of persecution.

Hard times will come. Heartaches will come. But God is faithful. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Everything that God allows into our lives is for the purpose of drawing us closer to Himself. He may have other purposes, but that's the main one. Next time you're tempted to ask God "Why?" remember that. :) I've never felt like I couldn't possibly be closer to God at any given moment in my Christian walk so far. The closer I get to Him though the more I long to get closer and closer, and I'll never be as close to Him as I long to be until I get to Heaven and can see Him as He is. On earth we will always see Him darkly as through glass, but someday we will see Him face to face.

If you don't hunger and thirst for God you probably won't get very close to Him. Because, the thing is, all this time He's always been where He promised He'd be. We're the ones who have moved away. And in our human weakness we will not be motivated to draw close to Him in and of ourselves. It's probably going to take some hard things to get our attention where it belongs. On Him.

And once our attention is where it needs to be, our eyes are on Him, and everything that is going on in our peripheral vision gets blurry. It becomes insignificant because we get a glimpse of Who our Father is, what He can do , and how He wants to use us to perform His purposes. It all starts to make sense then. He is still the same God He was when the children of Israel were wandering in the wilderness. He's longing to show His power through you, but he can't. Until you yield.