"To Infinity and Beyond!"

I wish you all could see the many posts I've begun but haven't finished in the last month or so. So many thoughts and things that I feel compelled to share, and yet, for some reason, I just haven't been at the place where I could share them. I'm going to try again, and I pray this time everything will fall into place as it should.

How many of you are following Angie's blog, and reading the book "Crazy Love"?

Okay, I can't see the raised hands, but my guess is that there are only one or two of you out there.

If you didn't raise your hand, let me encourage you to get it and read it. You won't be sorry. I myself hesitated to buy it, but I've been reading what has been available online. Ummm, several times. It's powerful stuff. It's exactly what my heart has been craving to hear, and, oh! the beautiful, amazing, absolutely unforgettable times I've had with the Lord these past few weeks!

I want to know God...for Who He really is. Not what I have been told He is, or even what I think He is, but for real. For myself. My ceaseless prayer has been that I may know Him, that His mind might be in me, that He would give me His heart for souls, that I would in every way be a reflection of Him; a reflection of His glory.

I wondered why, despite my faithfulness in Bible reading and prayer, I wasn't really making any progress in that area. I wondered why God was seemingly so reluctant to show Himself to me.

But it wasn't Him. It was me. He couldn't effectively show me any of those things until I realized the depth of my own insignificance.

Nearly everyday in my prayer time I would remind the Lord, and myself, that "I know that in me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing." and that all my "righteousnesses are as filthy rags" But it wasn't enough. Somehow I would still find myself thinking prideful, arrogant thoughts. Unintentionally, to be sure, but they were there all the same. Thoughts like, "I have to get this done." "This needs to be changed." "I have to be here at such and such time." "That should be done this way." "That's wrong. I need to fix it." "I forgot to do this. I'm a failure." "AHHH! I'm so stressed out!" Everything I faced each day was with the unconscious thought that I really mattered. As if the world would fall off it's axis if I didn't do everything just right. But my approach was all wrong. I was so focused on what I wasn't that I couldn't see all that He is.

Psalm 10:4 The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God: God is not in all his thoughts.

The truth is: God doesn't need me. To Him I'm nothing more than the tiniest speck of dust. The only time I'm even noticed is when He shines on me, and even then all I am is a mere reflection of His Light. My significance never increases. In fact, it should decrease.

Go here and click on "the awe factor of God" under videos. It took me days and days of reflection to grasp the magnitude of this; the reality of it. Go ahead. Do it now. Just be sure to come back here! =)

He is all that and yet...

He LOVES me (and you)!

To think that He loves me! ... more than I can ever hope to love those dearest to my heart on this earth. Wow! I cannot even fathom the depths of that love.....for me, a finite speck in the vastness of the infinite universe that He alone created by merely speaking. That is the smallest glimpse of the Greatness of the God I am so privileged to serve!

But really, considering His greatness, it's not His love for me that blows me away. He proved it a million times over when He sent His son to die in MY place. No, what awes me most is that He actually cares whether or not I love Him back. He longs for me to love Him supremely. It grieves His heart when I don't.

Yes, God has feelings.

Luke 10:27 And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself.

Look at how many times Jesus asks Peter if he loves Him:

John 21:15 Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these?
John 21:16 Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?
John 21:17 Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?

He feels it when I don't read my Bible and pray. And when I do it out of guilt instead of out of love, well, that grieves Him more still. He doesn't want me to read my Bible and pray everyday as an exercise in discipline. He wants me to do it because I can't help myself; because I can't truly enjoy my life without Him in the center of it all; because He is the center of it all.

Ephesians 4:6 One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.

It would compare to me scheduling 30 minutes out of my busy, busy day to somehow squeeze Josh in.

"Okay, Honey, it's 7:30. If you want to talk you'd better hurry. You only have fifteen minutes to talk and then it's my turn for 15 minutes!"

And every other day (or more) I wouldn't even give him that because my sleep would be more important to me than he was. We wouldn't have a relationship if that's what it was based on. What we would have would be more of an inconvenience than anything. But that's exactly how we treat God.

I want to show Him my love, and glorify His magnificence when getting ready for the day, when I'm eating pizza, and sleeping, and vacuuming ... in everything I do. The only way to be able to really do that is if He is there. I must acknowledge His presence in every moment of my life with every breath that I take.

1 Corinthians 10:31 Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.

It changes everything.

Granted, I have seen God do some pretty amazing things, but they are nothing compared to what He is capable of. As Christians we are all too good at wrapping God up and putting Him in a neat little box. A box that fits all of our ideas, thoughts, and expectations of God.

"God wouldn't use someone who does this or that or the other thing....God would never go there....He would never approve of that."

I'm guilty. Life is gray, discouraging, and dreary as we continue to look down on that small box, wondering when God is going to do what He says He will; wondering if He will. But if we were to open that box, if somehow we could muster up the courage to untie that neat little bow, we would find it to be full of the most amazing things! He would burst out, and color our lives with the most glorious beauty we have never before had the privilege to behold. We would go from looking down on God, and thinking we know better, to looking up and realizing that we are nothing and He is everything. God would be at the very core of every breath that we took, and our lives would never be the same again.

Our thoughts of God do not change or dictate who God is or what He can do. They cannot limit Him. We are far too insignificant. But we can alter our perception of Him by allowing the devil to crowd Him out of our thoughts. To place seeds of fear, and doubt, and guilt in our minds that cloud our thinking. We get to the point where we cannot see or hear God anywhere or in anything, but that doesn't make Him any less there, any less real, any less GOD.

I CORINTHIANS 2:9 But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.

ROMANS 8:35-39 "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Yep, that pretty much sums it up.