The Lifegiving Woman
years ago I conducted a television interview with a man who was struggling with cancer. I asked him a fairly typical Christian interview question: "Are you trusting God for a miracle?" And I have never forgotten his reply: "Tammy I've learned that sometimes the greatest miracle is just a perspective change."
That man said a lot of insightful things that day, but it was that one phrase that kept echoing in my mind. Parajumpers Kodiak It's still echoing, in fact, because it has proven true so often in my life. I've learned never to underestimate the power of changing the way I see. And I've come to believe that often in our lives, we won't be able to perceive the God who sees us until we're willing to see things differently.
I believe it's perfectly possible to spend an entire lifetime looking at ordinary things and events family, friends, fear, and disappointments and never have the smallest hint that God is there or that He is active in our lives.
It's easy. Happens all the time.
It's possible to look back on a life all the things that have happened up till now and not see any kind of pattern. It's also possible to look into the future and see more of the same. It's even possible to have an occasional glimpse into another dimension, a one time spiritual awakening, then lapse back into the ordinary and never really be changed.
But here's the alternative: We can choose to spend life in the same circumstances, the same places, among all the same people, and continually Cheap Oakley Goggles Uk be struck by the wonderful truth that God is there, that He's in control, that He loves us and is aware of us and wants us to be part of what He's doing in the world.
There's a kind a miracle, in other words, that we can choose. We can choose the miracle of a perspective change.
Does that mean that seeing God is just a matter of personal choice?
Not exactly.
It's always a little difficult to sort out what we can choose and what we can't choose in this life. Theologians have been trying to sort it out for centuries, juggling concepts of God's sovereignty and human free will, delving into the mysteries of what is up to us and what is up to God.
It's a mystery, a paradox that God is in control of the entire universe, yet He gives us freedom of will. And that paradox is fully in play when it comes to seeing God.
Because ultimately, it is God's choice to reveal Himself to us.
But we must choose to see what God reveals. We must have what the Bible calls eyes to see and ears to hear and a heart to perceive what the God who sees us is doing in our lives.
from The God Who Sees You by Tammy (with Anne Christian Buchanan). Cook. Used with permission. Permission required to reproduce.
Apr 23, 2012 5:59:11 PMThe God Who Sees You,Ever hear that from the mouth of a teenager? Back when I had four of them in the house at once, I heard it a lot often punctuated with the slam of a door or a toss of the head. My son and daughters all had times when they were convinced I had no clue what they were going through or what their lives were like.
And you know what? In a way, they were right. I had forgotten a lot about what it was like to be young to obsess over grades, walk the popularity gauntlet at school, and experience my first heartbreak. Plus, some of the things my kids experienced were just not part of my world when I was their age. Drugs and alcohol did not figure into my daily school reality. I had no cell phone, no pressure to be bone thin, no parents walking through divorce. Internet porn didn't even exist when I was a kid.
The truth is, understanding what my kids' lives were like required a huge effort of imagination on my part, plus a fair amount of research. Sometimes I succeeded in "getting it," but often I didn't and my kids Cheap Uggs Uk knew that.
Have you ever felt that way about God? Have you ever suspected that He just doesn't get what it's like to be you?
It's one thing to be seen. It's another thing a wonderful thing to be loved. But can an all powerful, purely good God truly appreciate what it's like to be human subject to sin and sniffles, dirt and disease, pushed around by our hormones and our families, vulnerable to grief and pain?
Can a perfect Being understand what it's like to be far from perfect?
He certainly understands the limitations of our bodies because He made us in the first place. "He knows our frame," the psalmist insists. "He remembers that we are dust" (Ps. 103:14) or, as Eugene Petersen translates, "that we're made of mud." God's well aware of our physical limitations, our emotional shortcomings, the way our histories and our choices have limited or even crippled us. And somehow, under it all, He sees potential. . . .
But God did so much more than understand our limitations. . . . God actually chose to become human which means He really gets it.
He actually put on skin and flesh and became what we are. We call it the incarnation. The coming of Jesus.
When God chose to be born on earth as Jesus, He accepted the reality of nerve endings. He learned what it was like to need sleep, to be hungry, to be lonely and disappointed. He experienced life through the five senses. He heard children laughing and maniacs screaming. He gazed at dancing flowers and leprous feet. He reveled in clean, smooth linen Moncler Jackets Uk and felt the stab of thorns on His brow. He enjoyed the salty tang of fresh caught fish and tasted vinegar from a sponge. He inhaled Canada Goose Jacket Uk the smell of bread baking and the unmistakable stench of death.
Jesus laughed. He wept. He knew what it was like to live in a human family, to be held in a mother's arms and looked up to by little brothers and sisters and supported by loving friends. He also knew what it was like to be hated and rejected by others for doing good. He knew what it was like to feel forgotten and ignored and invisible.
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