If you have been reading some of my recent posts, you know that I have mentioned that a lot has been going on with me.
My thoughts and emotions especially – can be overwhelmed lately, drowned by the continual bombardment of the world and self-focus.
Recently, I was getting overcome with frustration and sorrow over so many things—other Christians, our culture, the media, spiritual battles, emotional and health battles for me and my family.
Sometimes – our thoughts can be too loud – we are so busy petitioning God for what we need and want – we can’t hear Him. We don’t stop to ask Him how HE wants us to pray.
And the answer to that, is to pray in tongues.
As I slipped into the Spirit and let Him pray through me (as He was directing me to pray) peace came, and with it, clarity.
The enormity of how small I am and how big He is.
Many times, I am overwhelmed by the Holy Spirit—that He is so humble, so loving, so immediate, so gracious—that He would live INSIDE ME, a small, finite, human being.
But then there are other times that I am overwhelmed by God’s sovereignty.
We can become so focused on God’s love, we forget about His sovereignty. Worse yet, Christians can resent and fear this sovereignty—even work against it. For me, when I accept it, it fills me with a peace and a joy I cannot describe.
Like a child struggling with a project and then handing it to their dad and saying: “I can’t do it; you fix it.” I am so relieved to simply hand over life with all its problems and vagaries to the Lord.
Being a sentient, rational being is a true miracle—but when we can literally live and see through no perspective but our own—we start to feel as if the world revolves around us and our interpretation of it. We forget who and what we are. More importantly, we forget who HE is.
As I stood there, praying, I started to weep, and to praise Him.
He is MORE than my problems. MORE than my frustration, MORE than my pain, MORE than my anger, MORE than my confusion. He is MORE than my fear.
He is bigger than all these things – He is bigger than all the problems of the world. They are like dust in His hand—they are nothing compared to Him.
He is MORE than my ideas of justice. He is more righteous than any righteous anger I could possess.
He is MORE than what I think of Him. He is more knowledge, more wisdom, more power, more grace, more justice, more honor, more mercy, more pure, more majestic, more glorious. He is God.
He is more than me; He is more than anything. Because He is everything.
“He is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:17).
“Yours, LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty and the splendor, for everything in heaven and earth is yours. Yours, LORD, is the kingdom; you are exalted as head over all. Wealth and honor come from you; you are the ruler of all things. In your hands are strength and power to exalt and give strength to all” (1 Chronicles 29:11-12).
“There is none like You, O LORD; You are great, and great is Your name in might.” (Jeremiah 10:6).
I don’t HAVE to solve the world’s problems, or even my own. I don’t have to haul around all these overwhelming emotions or put up with this bombardment of thoughts – I can throw it all on Him. It’s too much for me to handle, but it’s NOT too much for Him. He wants me to rest in Him—He wants me to humble myself and acknowledge his sovereignty.
He doesn’t seek zealous fools trying to do great things for His kingdom – He wants obedient and humble servants. Until we are a humbled servant, we will never do anything great. If we are merely a zealous volunteer, we will be doing what WE think He thinks is great . . . it will be our idea of what He wants. Instead of carrying out what HE tells us to do. And often all that that he wants from us – is to simply glorify Him.
“The LORD does whatever pleases him, in the heavens and on the earth, in the seas and all their depths” (Psalm 135:6).
Now that is a verse to ruffle a few feathers. Most of us will say or think: No way! I want God to do what pleases ME!
But what pleases us isn’t always what pleases God – His ways our not our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts.
And I don’t want them to be.
I want to be like Jesus, I don’t want Jesus to be like me. I don’t want a god on my level—my level stinks; it’s pathetic, it’s sinful, it’s finite—I want a God above me. The definition of God should be that we look UP to something ABOVE us. I want someone I can’t attain to—otherwise, why would I keep going? I want someone I can’t understand—if I could understand Him, He would hold no wonder, and then He would not be God. I WANT Him to be MORE than me.
The verse should fill us with joy—because only God’s pleasures are perfect. When God does what pleases him, we can know it’s the BEST. It will be perfect, holy and right and it will be full of His love and wisdom. So be at peace; God’s “got this” – ALL of it . . . resting in His perfect will and sovereignty.
When I acknowledge how much more He is than me . . . that does not fill me with fear. I am comforted as no other thing can comfort me.
I belong to a Man that rules by the right hand of God Almighty.
And HE . . . is more than me.
“Cry aloud and shout for joy, O inhabitant of Zion, For great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel.” (Isaiah 12:6)
