Many people, myself included, may think God only shows up as a booming voice from heaven or a "split the Red Sea" sort of event. Although God may reveal himself in a "made for TV" event, usually it doesn't happen that way. God usually shows up in a whisper instead of a grandstanding extravaganza. And the anticipation of a spectacular event we are waiting for can cause us to miss Him completely.
God uses people and nature (or anything else He wants) to reveal Himself to us. Examples:
After the flood, He showed up in a rainbow,
to Moses, a burning bush,
to Gideon, a wet fleece,
to Elijah, a consuming fire,
to the widow and her son, a prophet and a never ending jar of oil,
to the people of Israel, quail and manna, a dry path through the Red Sea, a column of fire at night and a cloud by day,
to the people of Israel, Jesus who healed the sick,
to the world, the apostles who healed like Jesus and raised the dead,
to your community, you are......
How does God reveal Himself to you? What have you seen or heard that reveals a personal God?
I see the hand of God in the flowers that bloom around my house,
I see Him in nature,
I see Him in the answered prayers.
I feel His presence when I praise Him in song,
I sense His pleasure in me when I sing the Psalms,
I am awed by Him as He provides for me and my family,
I have heard Him tell me He loves me,
I see Him in the butterflies and cardinals,
I see Him in His Word, simple yet deep, clear yet revealing, universal yet personal.
Over the weekend, my 15 year old lost his school notebook. It has all his work in his core subjects at school. It was panic time. We looked high and low to no avail. So I prayed with him about it. We asked God if He would show my son his notebook. So he went to school this morning and found it in a classroom at school. The first place he looked, there it was. His school has 3,000+ students and one of them brought it to the classroom Friday afternoon after school. God is good. God answers prayers...at least this one, He did. I saw God and thanked him this morning for the notebook. No big deal. I just noticed.
Have you seen God lately? Leave your testimony here for others to see.
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Chris,
ReplyDeleteGreat blog. God revealed Himself in a similar way to me today. While driving around corners in my car, the water bottle went from side to side on the dashboard, and then fell in the seat beside me, instead of on the floor as usual. I noticed and thanked Him because with my disability that would have been hard for me to get to. I drove into Fry Electronics and into a rare, shaded, parking spot which was very neat because it was hot. I thanked Him because I needed to lay in the backseat and rest my sore back. A few minutes later, I forgot to look for God in the small things when I was in the Christian bookstore. I was looking for a reward pin for a discipleship course I am teaching. I bought a $.99 pin that looked real nice, but did not buy anymore because I wanted my associate to look at it first to see if it was a good value. After I had driven the 20 miles home, I noticed that it was originally $4, and I had paid $.39 for only one. After kicking myself for not buying more, I asked God what I should learn from this. What came to me was that I need to realize that God is always watching out for me. Look for Him in every situation, even the bad ones because there is always evidence of His favor and blessing. Do not look on the dark side but on the bright side, and I will see Him in the simple things just like today. I got a lot more worth of advice from God than the $20 that I would have saved by buying more pins for my class.
Mike
Thanks for the comment. The interesting thing is we have a choice on how to interpret events in our life. We can either see the hand of God ministering to us or we can say the things happen a random occurances of fate or chance. I choose to think God's hand is working but can understand the other side. For me, it is a matter of faith. As Frank Peretti says: Sometimes you have to believe it to see it.
ReplyDeleteHow do we know if it is God or not?