Sing In The LightA Blog Glorifying God

This morning as I was wrestling with whether I was actually ready to get out of bed, my eyes kept looking at a projection on the wall I was facing. There was just enough light from the moon outside that it would shine through the trees and paint a framed silhouette on the wall. Then, when the wind would pick up, not only could I hear the leaves rustling in the trees outside our room, but I could see them dance as well. It was cool.

As I lay there, I was wondering what God was sharing with me. I thought of this and that. Of people to pray for. But I still wasn’t sure those were the reasons for what I was seeing on the wall this morning. So, finally I realized I just was not going to go back to sleep and I got up and started my morning routine. Not that the time in prayer was bad, but I was losing focus as I began thinking of things I needed to accomplish in the hours to come.

At my computer, I read this as part of my morning devotional routine:

“It is no advantage to be near the light if the eyes are closed.”
–Augustine

What? How amazing! It made me realize that if I had not lain in bed this morning, captivated by the “show” on the wall in my room, in most likelihood I may not have spent time in prayer this morning. Or at least I may not have prayed for what I did. And certainly not at the time I did. I May not have spent time in wonder, trying to listen for His desire. I would have been near the light, but my eyes would have remained closed.

What good is it for me to walk through my days and nights, knowing God is near me, but not taking the time to open my eyes and look?

Now, if you were me, you would be asking yourself if the act of looking is “voluntary” or “involuntary”? It’s just the way my mind thinks and desires to learn. I would be curious to know what percentage of our day is spent with our eyes open? When they are open, they look. That is simply what they do, what they are designed for. So I would think that looking would be an involuntary action. However, the act of interpreting those visions would be voluntary. Right?

God gave us lots of things to look at. But each of us must make a decision on what we do with what we see. God is dancing and singing and revealing Himself to me and to you constantly, but I/we have to CHOOSE to see Himself revealed. It’s like those puzzles where you have to find the hidden objects in the photo. They are there, and your eye sees them over and over again as you search. But it is not until you focus your thought that the objects are revealed. Hopefully.

May your eyes and mine be open today to God’s glory revealed. He is there. He is not hiding.

“May today there be peace within.
May you trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be.
May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith.
May you use those gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you.
May you be confident knowing you are a child of God. Let this presence settle into your bones,
and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love.
It is there for each and every one of us.”
–Teresa of Ávila

This morning I was reading an update from a friend of mine who was blessed to receive a new heart just about 4 weeks ago. While I do not know if he is a believer, it is interesting to read his expression of his thoughts. It is a blessing that he is sharing his gratitude for his new opportunity, and his struggles that someone else lost their life in order to that he may extend his.

I can only imagine, and I pray that my imagination will suffice, what it must feel like to wake up and realize that someone else’s heart is beating inside of your chest.

As a believer, that was a hard sentence to type without pausing. Shouldn’t I know what it feels like, not physically, but mentally? I SHOULD KNOW!

My mind is recalling the visual image from Robert Munger’s book ‘My Heart, Christ Home’. And I am imagining my heart being given over to Christ bit by bit. My heart becoming His. I should know the fullness of having a heart transplant. A spiritual heart transplant! The heart that beats in this chest should not be my own, but His. Is that not the journey that each of us are on, giving our whole heart over to our Creator?

So, I am rereading the quote above, and that fourth line grabs me, “May you use those gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you”.

This morning I am reminded that when I accepted Christ, He gave me a new heart. A gift. My brain has been slow to realize this fully and to know what I am capable of with Christ’s heart inside of me. May this day, and each day, be an opportunity for me to grow in knowing what His heart inside of me is can do.

In His service,
Keith

PS… my friend, in his last message, also shared that during the surgery they cut the nerve connecting his heart to his brain, in order for there to be no communication between the brain and the new heart. The nerve may regenerate over time, he says. I wonder if the same thing happens when we accept Christ into our hearts. I can only imagine how much my brain would try to reject the messages coming from a new and radically different heart. And yet, over time I think that communication link regenerates.

You all may find this not the least bit interesting, but I’m going to share it anyway.

I was just writing an email to an individual and as I was typing away I unconsciously typed an uppercase “Him” instead of a lowercase “him” as it should have been. No part of the email I was composing was spiritual, so why would my little fingers type “Him”?

The best thing I could think was that maybe my fingers knew that I needed to take a moment and think about Him. Nothing profound. Just an appropriate interruption to a crazy afternoon.

Okay, wanna hear something equally probably unimportant to you? I was typing the email to an individual named Micah. I didn’t even make that connection until my “typo”. Wonder if I’m now supposed go look at something in Micah now? Okay, so, being wild and crazy I just did a random Google search on Micah and the first thing that popped up was Micah 6:8.

“He has showed you, O man, what is good.
And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.”

The ways that God moves in our lives to get our attention is nothing less than amazing.

This morning I have been continuing to work on a concept for a book that a friend and I have come up with. Part of that process has taken me back many years and has me reading over the ramblings I have had and shared. Wow, words are so powerful because they can have unique meanings depending on where the reader is at in his or her life, and depending on what God chooses to open their eyes to.

Following is something that I came across this morning. It struck me this morning because nearly daily it seems that something will happen to me that goes contrary to my intended purpose. Not talking a catastrophic event here, just a lower case “shoot” or “dang”. And yet, sometimes moments later (if I am lucky), I come to be thankful for the “mishap”. So, like yesterday we were making dinner and were missing a key ingredient. Which meant I needed to go to the store. Shoot! Not exactly in the plans. Yet, as I am checking out of the store I got to see the daughter of one of our friends and congratulate her on her high school graduation over the weekend. Cool! I need to remember that in all things God has a purpose. He has His own timing.

“A lone shipwreck survivor on an uninhabited island managed to build a rude hut in which he placed all that he had saved from the sinking ship. He prayed to God for deliverance, and anxiously scanned the horizon each day to hail any passing ship. One day he was horrified to find his hut in flames. All that he had was gone. To the man’s limited vision, it was the worst that could happen and he cursed God. Yet the very next day a ship arrived. ‘We saw your smoke signal,’ the captain said.”
– Walter Heiby

As I re-read those words for about the fourth or fifth time this morning one word jumps out at me this: prayer. Well, now two things: the man cursed God and yet God still honored his prayer. Sure, this story is probably made up, but I think it is also a subtle reminder to me that God looks at my heart and not my immediate reaction to “tragedies” in my day, in my life.

“You can kiss your family and friends good-bye and put miles between you,
But at the same time you carry them with you in your heart, your mind, your stomach,
Because you do not just live in a world but a world lives in you.”
- Frederick Buechner, Telling the Truth

Wow! Ain’t that the truth. This morning I saw two different Facebook “updates” from two friends that I have that are now in Morocco. They are from two different times in my life, yet it is amazing that we can stay in contact so easily. That’s a little different than what Buechner was talking about, I think. Yet seeing those updates on Facebook reminded me of Buechner’s words that I read in ‘The Shack’ last night.

So this morning I am reminded of all the friends that I carry in “my heart, my mind and my stomach”. Those that are miles or years away, and also those who have passed from this world. They linger inside of me as rays of sunshine, and joy.

Each of us is wonderfully made with a very small degree of transcending time. Not quite the way He does, but still powerful and only by His grace.

May you carry with you today the smiles, smells and joys of someone who is far away.

“Let love and faithfulness never leave you; bind them around your neck,
Write them on the tablet of your heart.” – Proverbs 3:3

“There is not one blade of grass, there is no color in this world that is not intended to make us rejoice.”
-John Calvin

Taking in these words this morning, and some of the things in a bible study lesson, I am reminded of the two things: The Garden of Eden, and Heaven.

The image I have of both is that they were created for one thing: places where you and I can fully glorify God. They are not places like here and now where I am distracted by stuff and weighed down by my own sin. They are places where “every blade of grass is intended to make me rejoice”. Sorry, but that doesn’t happen for me here. Here, every blade of grass is waiting to be mowed. Sorry, but I just don’t see God everywhere. And that is not true fellowship with God as He intended.

So the challenge before me today is to see God in perhaps a place I have not seen Him before.

“Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden.” – Genesis 3:8

I could be totally wrong, but this is a different picture than the one of Moses hiding in the cliff, unable to look at God in His fullness.

For now, let me see the blade of grass for its intended purpose: to make me rejoice in Him.

Keith