How I Got to Where I Am Today

I was thinking today what a great designer God is...
Looking back on my life, it's hard to imagine, but there was a day when my parents were on CAMP-of-the-WOODS staff together without having any notion that one day they'd be married and have 6 kids. Okay, well maybe they liked the notion of each other and then their love grew. I was thinking...they walked these same grounds I'm walking today without ever having known when they looked out across the lake at a tiny island that one day they'd be married (to someone they didn't even know yet) and have a daughter who would grow to love that place and love the Lord and His people there. But it even goes back to both sets of grandparents I guess. It just reminds me of Psalm 139...before I was even a twinkle in their eyes, I was a purpose for His glory...and so it is with all of us.

I look back as well at myself and how many times I have doubted God's promises...that He really is able to do far more than we could ever ask or think (Ephesians 3:20)...oh how what I've really wanted all along was to be used by Him and for Him...and then when it comes into my lap, like Moses, I tell Him I'm not good enough (and really I'm not, but my focus is still in the wrong place). But a key ingredient that is so often missing is "bowing my knees before the Father (3:14)." And what Paul's been talking about all along in the previous 3 chapters is the gospel...so bowing my knee to what Jesus has already done...in saving countless others...in redeeming and reviving me...and then humbly asking Him who is able to do far more...to do it...and to allow me to play a part in it.

I look back at how God had to bend my knees for me. And I wish I had been more willing at times. But I'm thankful for those times and what He revealed to me...because they've made my heart more able to hold compassion. How He had to show me that I had some bad misconceptions that Christians who were truly following Him would never suffer...or rather that in suffering, they wouldn't feel it so hard, or respond like other humans would...That they'd be superhuman. But it was through those times that I learned how much God loved me, and slowly but surely that I really loved Him...and that suffering often later produced the greatest joy in realizing just how far His grace had stooped...and really what it means that only in death is there life.

It's not just that God is in the cosmos...His Son came to earth to redeem the micro. And what a great story that is! He's just as involved in the pixels of the canvas as the entire landscape!

I love sunsets...mostly the vibrant ones...but even the gray, snowy, only faint light sunsets have a story to tell of darkness and light.

"I'm not what I should be, and I'm not what I will be, but thank you Lord, I'm not what I was (ibid)."

After God's Heart...

I'm learning about David...and I guess just hoping that, in the spirit of David, I will begin to grasp the immensity of what it really means to be a person after God's heart...In 2 Samuel God defines that: "He will do everything I want him to do." I only hope our lives are devoted to that. Is it any wonder the heart is the control center of our lives? And the spiritual heart affects our thoughts, feelings, will, and character...oh that we might think what He thinks, feel what He feels, want what He wants, DO what He would have us, see others with His eyes.