God's Exceeding Abundant Interest in You!

During a difficult time in my life a Scripture verse kept my head above water, as I put my trust in "Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us" (Ephesians 3:20). Quite frankly, I didn't feel any power in my life nor could I even think of what could possibly be "exceeding" or "abundant" except more pain and powerlessness. But I believed God, so I kept praying it and trusting that God would make this true in my life. And He has! Years later, I can say that what He continues to do in my life is more than I would have ever thought.

This came to mind in a conversation with a friend just the other day about God's goodness, and I decided that I would again begin to pray that for my daily life. Why not believe God DAILY for exceeding abundant manifestations of His goodness? Here's what's been happening since.

The next morning I was awakened with a friend on my heart and some concern for her. As I began to pray for her, the Lord gave me some insight into her life that I felt He wanted me to share with her. While in the shower at 7:20 a.m. I heard the phone ring. I dashed for it, concerned with who would call that early and it was my friend. She wanted to know if we could get together today as she felt she needed to talk with me about something troubling her. I told her what God had shown me about putting some balance in her life and she said, "That's it! You just gave me the answer to what I needed to know." Bingo. God to the rescue once again.

A few hours later I felt a nudge from the Lord: "Take your mother's blood pressure." Mom is 91 and lives with me. I am her care-taker. I thought I'd better obey that nudge and sure enough, her b.p. was 204/79. Not good. I immediately put in a call to the doctor and left a message. Then I heard the Lord say, "Check her meds." So I did and found that I had left out her b.p. meds in her daily pills so she had not had one for 5 days. Evidently those pills work. I put her back on the b.p. meds and all is well now. Is that awesome or what? God, Amightly God cares about my Mom's blood pressure. He not only cares about my little Mom (litterly, she's now 4'8"), but He made sure I heard Him. He's been teaching me to hear His voice for years and I'm so grateful that I can. I'm also grateful for a God who is relational and loving and involved in the details of our lives. Exceedingly abundantly so.

For the past week or two, as I'm involved in a writing project that presses me to a May 15th deadine, I've been thinking of what I'd like to do when that pressure is lifted off of me, not that I'm not enjoying the writing. But what I've felt I would love to do is ....sew! Just me and God, no deadlines. No interviews, No profound thinking and articulate expressions, just colors and patterns juxtaposed in harmonious profusion. A quilt. I've always wanted to make a quilt. I used to sew years ago and it was quite satisfying. Now the desire has resurfaced. It became a day dream when I wanted to rest my brain. Yesterday while in the supermarket, I spent 10 whole minutes browsing through two quilting magazines and actually bought one, not to put it to use, but just to vicariously enjoy other women's quilting. I had this urge to go to a fabric store and look and feel, to take a sensate mini-vacation. But how productive would that be? Surely I should use my time more Kingdom worthy, more productively than that. Never mind.

But yesterday yet another friend called me over to her house. She had a surprise for me, she said. I couldn't imagine what. First she gave me a friendship card which in itself was loving, but then, as we were standing in her own sewing room, she pushed a big box forward with her foot and said, "And this is for you," saying that she felt it was something the Lord wanted her to bless me with..... a brand new computerized sewing machine! I was speechless. Me, I'm rarely speechless. This time I was. I don't know that I've ever received such an extravagant gift, especially one that was also so much from the Lord.

I told her about my recent longing for sewing. This surely couldn't be a coincidence. I don't believe in coincidences. I know God too well for that. I know He weaves things in our lives together for His purposes. Evidently, all my longing for sewing was His doing, His wanting to balance out my own life with beauty, and colors and the joy of creating. Isn't that part of being in the image of the creator - creating? This gift is without a doubt exceedingly abundantly beyond all I would have thought I had the right to ask for. But my wonderful Lord Who is the God of all goodness is the ultimate Giver.

May I encourage you to ask God for His exceeding abundant 'beyondness' to be manifest in your life so you can be an instrument for Him to touch others. (But don't be surprised if He wants to do in your life what He may show you to pray for someone else, like balance, for instance.) Be on the lookout daily for how you can give His goodness to others, spread around your trust in God, encourage people in the Lord, and see what happens. Here's His own promise: "Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you.” God is interested in blessing you. Let Him!! Believe Him to do so and watch how He shows you His love for you and through you.

God Is In The Visuals

A friend and I were having an e-chat about how we each “see” God. I asked her how she imagined or pictured the Lord. I’m a pretty visual person. I have to kind of picture things to process them. God is in the visuals for me, though not exclusively of course. I do see God all around me. His fingerprints are everywhere. He’s in the harmonies of colors and the way shapes fit together. He’s in the ripples and the reflections in a pond or a puddle as they shine back the heavens above them. He’s in the flight of the herons that frequent our pond lifting undulating wings majestically while flying down stream. At times they seem to reveal God's smile at all the beauty He's created.

He’s in the pebbles on the path, each little one -- How did it get there? What made it that shape? Did God design each one specifically to His liking? I see the Hand of the Sculptor in them. I see the twist of several kinds of vines wrapping themselves around each other, reminding me of the way our lives weave in and out of each others’, and the reaching out of the tendrils to grasp hold of something other than itself for support. My eyes go to the grey-green-brown varied textures in each tree bark reminding me of the varied textures of experiences in our lives that serve to enable us to stand upright and strong as we grow in the Lord.

And that’s just what happens three times a day while walking my dog, Lizzie, in whose little face, when she looks into my eyes with her faithful devotion and unconditional love, is as the affection of God to me. What wonder. Part of my gratefulness to God continually is for eyes that see.

But I also picture Yeshua (Jesus). All the time. In my imagination. The stories about Him in the Bible are real life experiences to me. I go with Him in them. I figure God gave us imagination and then tells us stories for the very purpose of having us picture what took place in them and who was involved so we can project ourselves into the stories and respond to them, even internalize them. Not all, but many. Yesterday I read, “Jesus, perceiving that they were intending to come and take Him by force to make Him king, withdrew again to the mountain by Himself alone” (John 6:15). “Lord,” I said, “Take me with You.” I want to go and be with Him, I want to see Him when He’s alone with His Father, when no one else is around, to know Him that way too.

I can’t tell you I was granted a visual of this, at least not yet, but I did ask Him, “Lord, were you transfigured when you were alone with your Father so that you were in touch with Your glory? Did that only happen once or did it happen often? Or were you confined to Your humanity, humble before Abba, even stretched out and face down?”

As I ask these questions, I can “see” Him, humbling Himself before Abba, prostrate before Him. Even envisioning this again now humbles me. Makes me be still inside as if I’m in the presence of holiness. Then, as much as I am able, I try to picture Him glorified: “And He was transfigured before them; and His face shone like the sun, and His garments became as white as light” (Matthew 17:2). But I realize I’m incapable of seeing Him this way, with His Face as bright as the sun which we cannot endure looking at directly. His whole being emanating pure light! I cannot see this as it must have been, but I can surely feel the Holy Spirit within me responding to my even wanting to, as silent worship wells up within me.

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