CONNECT-THE-DOTS

in my mind, i'm standing on a page. surrounding me are lots of dots. my goal is to connect them all somehow. i draw a straight line from the dot i'm standing at to the nearest one on my right. so far so good. i draw another line. but as i'm drawing, anxiety rises in my heart - how exactly is everything going to link together? where does that dot fit in? what about this one??? what if my lines end up crossing and i end up in a mess????

this, i realize, is what i'm trying to do with the various elements of my life. i'm trying to logically make sense of things that don't seem to fit together at the moment. and i'm trying to figure it all out on my own.

God is bigger than this page of dots i'm standing on though. He is poised and ready to connect my dots. it may not be with straight lines. He may ignore some of the dots and draw some new ones. but He sees the picture He wants to create.

the question is, am i willing to let Him hold the pen?

Trust in the Lord with all your heart;
do not depend on your own understanding;
seek His will in all you do,
and He will show you which path to take.
~Proverbs 3:5-6(NLT)~

DEPTHS

this morning, i was reflecting on a very familiar psalm when some new insight broke through. (don't you love it when that happens? it's like you're reading something you've read a thousand times and even memorized when you suddenly see a phrase in a new light and it reveals a new dimension you've never thought of before.)

If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,"
even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
~Psalm 139:11-12~

i used to think that the author was trying to hide in the darkness - to run away from God. and that God cannot be hidden from as much as we try.

what i realized this morning was that it could be out of despair that the psalmist writes. he feels engulfed in darkness and uncertainty and thinks that surely God will not know where to rescue him from. but the hope and the truth is that God cannot be stumped by darkness. He still sees clearly through our uncertainties.

yay for a God who has perfect perspective!

All the days ordained for me
were written in Your book
before one of them came to be.
~Psalm 139:16b~

EMBRACING THE RIDICULOUSNESS OF GOD

a friend and I were musing over dim sum yesterday about faith and art and missions in Asia when out of the blue, she said something like, "until you embrace the ridiculousness of God, you don't experience the fullness of all He wants to bless you with." that's probably one of the best descriptions of how our relationship with God works. not only is salvation - the idea that God would become a man to die in our place - ridiculous, but many things God calls us to do, many steps of faith seem ridiculous. i feel like this morning i potentially wrecked something that was going well. in this case, God's holiness seems ridiculous, especially when compared to the world's standard of what's acceptable. embracing God's ridiculousness is to trust that He knows what He's asking for - and that it's for our good.

so even though all i see right now is the ridiculous, i trust that somewhere down the line, i'll see the blessing.

The king said to Daniel, "Surely your God is the God of gods and the Lord of kings and a revealer of mysteries..."
~Daniel 2:47~

THE TESTIMONY OF LEAVES
An Exerpt on God's Faithfulness from "The Holy Wild" by Mark Buchannan

A leaf. Behold a single leaf. So fragile, it tears like paper, crushes in your hand to a moist stain, sharply fragrant. Dry, it burns swift and crackling as newsprint, pungent as gunpowder. Yet a leaf may withstand hurricanes, stubbornly clinging to its limb.

Hold it open in your palm. It is perfect as a newborn's smile. Pinch its stem between thumb and forefinger and hold it to the light. Eden bleeds through. Its veins are like bone work in silhouette. This single leaf, joined to the tree, drinks poison from the air, drinks it serenely as Socrates downing his cup of hemlock, and refuses to return in kind, instead spilling out life-giving oxygen. This leaf tilts to catch the sun, its warmnth and radiance, to distill the heat and light down to the shadows, down to the roots, back up to limbs. To shade the earth. To feed you and me.

A leaf. God makes these season after season, one after the other, billions upon bilions, from the Garden to the New Jerusalem, most for no eye but His own. He does it faithfully, or else I would not live to tell about it, or you to hear.

Perhaps of all my many sins against heaven, this ranks with the worst: Until this moment, I have never thanked God for a single leaf.

I read this a while back but seeing the flaming reds and brilliant hues of orange and yellow around here, I can't help but marvel at the miracle of a single leaf - and the mystery of the big-ness of God.

For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.
~Habbakuk 2:14~