The All-Powerful, All Encompassing I AM

 

A wise woman told me:

“Everything is in God.

“Everything people are looking for, God has it.  If people are needing comfort, God is the Great Comforter. If people are needing love and affection, God is Love. Even food and drink and money, God provided for it. Whether people realize it or not, everyone is actually looking for God.”

That struck me as really profound. It’s so easy to get lost in the trees looking for the forest.

Even this week, writing these articles, I found myself searching for the words. Sitting in front of an open laptop, I earnestly searched for what to say. Needing a fresh testimony of God, and inspiration.

In the middle of my search, I felt a still, small Voice speak to my heart:

“You keep looking for the words. But what you need is the Author.”

So I closed the laptop. “God, what would You want to say to me?”

I felt moved to read Romans. As I read, God kept speaking to me about a brand new life He wants to give to me.

God gives us a brand new life the moment we choose to walk with Him. I can look at my life and see big changes. It’s wonderful.

But that brand new life isn’t just for starters.

It’s CONSTANTLY new.

After all, “in the increase of [God’s] government and peace, there shall be no end…” Isaiah 9:7.

God’s kingdom is like the iPhone. You always need the latest and greatest to keep up.

That night, God spoke to me through a dream.

I was asked to be the spokesperson for an underground spy operation.

“I’ll have to be someone completely new and innocent,” I told the recruiter. “All my life I’ve been defined by shame and regret. I’ll have to be different.”

I woke up knowing God was wanting to speak to me. And that was glorious! And the reason I’m sharing all of this is to say–the Author gave me the words!

I told God: “You said You would provide all my needs. I need a certain amount of money to pay such-and-such bill this month, and I have no idea how to get that money for it. Is this true, or are You a liar?”

God didn’t seem to object to my challenge. I had listed something to sell over a year ago. Seemingly out of the blue, it sold. I was able to pay my bill.

So I challenged God the next month. “That was great, but now I have the bill again. You did say you would provide all my needs.”

A similar thing happened the next month. Another item I had listed to sell suddenly sold and paid my bills.

Month after month, God kept supplying my needs, as He said He would.

I got into a horrible accident. With a bruised shoulder, I remembered God’s words in the Bible:

“...with His stripes, we are healed”. (Isaiah 53:5)

Present tense. Right now. Boom – healed.

I decided to take God at His word again. I didn’t even ask for healing. I just took God at His word that it was already done. 

I had barely been able to dress myself because of how bruised my shoulder was. The moment I started to praise God for healing me, my shoulder loosened like somebody had flipped a switch.

It seemed so sudden, I burst out laughing in surprise.

I stopped praising God, and my shoulder almost instantly tensed up again. Then I went back to praising God, and–again–my shoulder immediately loosened up again.

As I kept praising God, my shoulder stayed loose and never bound up again.

The underground church often thrives in Communist countries.

Why? That’s because in the face of intense persecution, you have to know whether this faith you believe is going to come through for you or not.

In the face of that pressure, believers take God at His word. And God shows up, miraculously!

With less pressure and more wealth like we live in, it’s easy to take God for granted and rely on our wallet to support us. And it’s easy to forget the reality of God.

But God is yearning to reveal Himself. He wants you to know how glorious life with Him can be.

He wants to show you the “breadth and length and depth and height” of His love for you.

Dare to step out. Dare to see Him for as He is.

When Bright Ideas Turn Out Dumb

“For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord. They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope…” (Jeremiah 29:11)

That’s a great, hopeful verse. Very comforting.

Why don’t we live in that reality of God’s plans? Often, it’s because our big, bright ideas get in the way.

In Genesis, God told Abraham about a plan God had for him.

“...’Lift your eyes now and look from the place where you are–northward, southward, eastward, and westward; for all the land which you see I give to you and your descendants forever. And I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth, so that if a man could number the dust of the earth, then your descendants also could be numbered.’ ” (Genesis 13:14-16)

Abraham didn’t even have a child, and God was telling him this. Later on, God confirmed it again:

“...’Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them.’ And [God] said to him:

“ ‘So shall your descendants be.’ “ (Genesis 15:5)

So Abraham and his wife got together and talked it over. They felt they were obviously too old to have kids. Abraham was about 86 and his wife, Sarai, was 76. They discussed the ideas, and finally Sarai had a bright idea.

“The Lord has prevented me from having children. Go and sleep with my servant, Hagar. Perhaps I can have children through her.”

Let me fast-forward this story a bit.

You’ve heard about the trouble in the Middle East right now, right?

That’s where it started. Right there. Sarai and Abraham’s bright idea.

I read a true story, “Son of Hamas”, about the oldest son of one of the seven men who founded Hamas. This son converted to Christianity and ended up working as a double agent for Israeli intelligence until he finally left.

“I know the intricacies of this war better than anyone,” he wrote. (I’m paraphrasing.) “It really boils down to the conflict between Hagar’s son, Ishmael, and Sarai’s son, Isaac. That animosity between those two brothers is what’s causing all this bloodshed today.”

According to how Sarai perceived it, 76 was too old to have a kid. But she hadn’t counted on God.

God waited until Sarai was NINETY YEARS OLD before she got pregnant for the first time in her life.

Talk about a geriatric pregnancy.

God didn’t stop Abraham from sleeping with Hagar. But her son, Ishmael, was not the anointed one. Sarai’s son, Isaac, was. God prophesied about Ishmael: “He shall be a wild man; his hand shall be against every man, and every man’s hand against him…” (Genesis 16:12).

Sarai and Abraham’s bright idea, their attempt at ‘helping God out’, is still tearing the world apart today.

I have bright ideas which are also destructive.

Recently, a friend texted me:

“Call Jeffrey about his shoes.”

So I called Jeffrey. He was all excited. He had been praying for new shoes, and out of nowhere, it seemed,

God had provided shoes that were perfectly his size.

What Jeffrey didn’t know was how close he came to not getting his shoes.

I had the bright idea that those shoes were mine. A friend had offered them to me, and eager for new footwear, I’d tried to make it work. They almost fit me. But the shoes cramped the sides of my feet a bit. Finally, a friend asked me to officially measure my feet. 

Don’t judge me, but I had never done that before.

I discovered that technically my feet were two sizes too big for that pair of shoes. 

I would’ve never been fully comfortable in them. If I had kept them, I would have blocked God’s provision for Jeffrey.

The same thing happened with a woodworking business I pursued. The more I pushed, the more I sensed: “This is another Ishmael.” 

Like with the shoes, I was pushing to make it work.

When God brings something in my life, I don’t have to push to make it work.

That’s a good indicator of me trying to make it happen instead of following God in it.

Over the winter, I went to buy some product for my business. I went to a certain area to get the product. I visited one outlet after another. But nothing felt right. I finally settled on something “good enough”. But I knew in my heart it wasn’t God’s best.

God’s not in the best idea I have out of twelve.

God is God. Perfect and complete, lacking nothing. His ways are not my ways.

I got that product, but it wasn’t God’s perfect. That was evidenced pretty quick. It was my “Ishmael”.

When I returned, I let God lead me this time. 

This time, God led me deep into what looked like a wasteland. Somewhere that made no sense to my brain. Just like Sarai had to let go of what made sense to her.

And there, in the middle of what should have been a wasteland, I found it.

On my very first stop searching for the product was God’s “Isaac” for me.

It’s not worth it to push it. It’s not worth it to try to make it fit, like I did with that pair of shoes. Nor do we need to override what we feel deep inside to make it work.

God doesn’t need our help. His perfect Will will be done. He only needs our agreement.

Wouldn’t you agree?

Simplicity: The Gateway to the Divine

It’s so easy to over-complicate God.

I’ve definitely done that a lot. I’ll pray about something, and I think it’s going to take–I don’t know, maybe two hours. Or I’ll have to pray about sixteen times in my closet before God will give it to me. Something like that.

But that’s not what God said.

God said He has everything we need before we even ask for it. (Matthew 6:8)

Dad told me this the other day, and it was really profound.

“Don’t think you have to wait until a later time to find God,” he said. “It’s available right now. If you wait, you won’t receive what God has for you.”

I saw that demonstrated the next day. I had a list of things that needed to be done. But amidst my busy-ness, I was craving fellowship with others.

There’s something powerful about connecting with other believers and talking about what God is doing. Growing up in church, I never understood the point of communion. 

Now I realize what those little wafers and cups of juice represented. Now I realize what Jesus meant when He told His disciples: “Take, eat; this is My Body.”

Believers are the Body of Christ. In the Body of Christ, our fellowship with each other is lifeblood.

Anyways, back to what I was saying. So: a laundry list of things to do, praying about fellowship with others, I was working away.

God, in His simplicity, showed up in the middle of my day.

God stirred me to make a phonecall while I worked. I got on the phone with a believer I knew as I got ready to go shopping. I chatted away while I got in my truck and started driving to the store.

Little did I know, just when God directed me to call, this guy was just getting into town. He was only coming to town for a few hours in that entire week. Lo and behold, I was calling him in that short window.

“You’re in town?” I said, surprised. “Where are you?”

“I’m about to make a turn at the refinery,” he said.

“Are you serious?” I asked him. “That’s where I am.”

God directed me past all knowing to call him and pull up directly behind him. We were heading to the same parking lot. I so much enjoyed watching God set that whole meeting up.

Believers in Communist countries have a great way of keeping the government spies from crashing their underground meetings.

They only meet when and where God directs them. It frustrates the government spies, because they can’t figure out how everyone just knows where to meet.

This felt like that.

We stopped together to eat. I heard about how God was healing his family’s connections. Freeing him from a paralytic inability to express. Filling him with joy and causing him to dance to the Lord, sometimes literally. Building in his life something new that I rejoiced to witness God begin the summer before.

It encouraged me, exhorted me, being able to hear his testimonies. It also challenged me, and stirred my own spirit as I was able to relate what God was doing in my own life.

Even after, God directed my footsteps past my knowing. I just so “happened” to be in the perfect place to pick something up for him he needed afterwards. 

My prayer to be led by God didn’t need to be complicated.

It didn’t take more brainpower or spirituality than a simple request.

I read once about Jesus appearing in a vision to a man. Jesus said: “I always kept things very simple when I explained things. I talked in terms the people could understand. I talked about shepherds, sheepfolds, vineyards, grapes, and so forth. That’s so they could easily understand.”

I’ve seen it true in my own life. If it’s complicated, it’s likely not from God. Not to say God can’t unveil deeper things. As Paul said: “However, we speak wisdom among those who are mature…” (1 Corinthians 2:6)

But overall the truth of God is remarkably simple. A foolishness that “puts to shame the wise”. (1 Corinthians 1:27)

I read about a missionary ministering to the Navajo Indians. One giant Native American was particularly troublesome. He only showed to church when he was drunk out of his mind. He’d go on such a rampage when he would, breaking pews and ripping apart the pulpit, the reservation police couldn't even handle him. The man was so large and ferocious, it took three carloads of deputies to deal with him.

One Sunday night, he showed up drunk again. The missionary was preaching especially simply, as many in the audience had little formal education. He preached a simple text, Romans 10:13: “Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

The big man charged the altar.

Alarmed, the preacher and staff were on edge, ready for typical damage control.But once he got there, the giant Native American fell over the altar, and yelled three words:

“Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!”

Everyone was shocked. They rushed forward to help him “get saved properly”. But he stood up quickly.

They urged him to get back down and pray or repent more, assuming it couldn’t have happened that fast, given his notorious past.

“No,” he said. “I’m saved.”

“You can’t be saved that quickly,” they argued.

“Weren’t you just preaching about this?” he asked. “You can pray if you want, but God just saved me!!”

That man had a miraculous transformation from that moment forward. The missionary realized he didn’t even believe his own preaching!

As I’ve personally witnessed great men and women of faith, I’ve been surprised by something. 

I’ve been surprised by how ordinary they are.

From the outside, you might overlook them.Yet they have experienced God in ways that would astonish you.

God doesn’t need our complications. He doesn’t need our books on theology or our dissertations on doubt.

The kingdom of God is made so simple, you must become like a child to enter in.