Bigger Than

Have you ever noticed that there are times we stick God in a box that is just right for us.  I did a message for the adults on Palm Sunday.  While preparing for this message I came across a point that rocked my world.  First let me start from the beginning.  March 13th was my wife's last day at her job that she worked at for ten years.  Normally this would have sent me into a panic but this peace came over me that assured me that everything was going to be alright.  As Julie and I talked it became clear that God wanted to use this event in our lives in a way that will take us to another level of living for Him.  After a couple of weeks of just praying for Julie to find a part-time job God started to speak to me in a powerful way.  It all began with the message I was preparing for Palm Sunday.  The lead pastor had given me the topics and the over all points he wanted me to cover and then turned me lose.  One of the points was "When your in the "Pit" lift your eyes to God's Greatness!"  As I prepared and did my thing I kept hearing sermons and reading scripture that reminded me of God's Greatness.  Think about how great a God we have and how we really keep Him from being Great in our lives.  We have a God is Great Box and that is where we keep Him.  Here is what God told me to do.  Throw away my God Box and allow Him to be Great.  Not the Great that my mind can comprehend but the Great that He is.  So what is it that God has in store for Julie and I, I don't know, all I know is I want to see His greatness not my greatness for Him.  Am I praying telling God what I want to see happen, No I praying for God to move in a way that I can't even fathom.  I want to see His Greatness that can only come from Him.  As I continued to comprehend this as much as humanly possible and even answer questions from Julie on what I was thinking and whether it was me thinking this or was it God speaking.  The morning of that conversation I was reading as apart of my time with God a book from "Jesus through the Old Testament" in it was a chapter that talked about God's promises and had some scripture with it that said we needed to read the scripture along with the book.  I just wanted to get through the book and get finished so I can write my paper and be done.  Nope, God had something to say to me,  I turned to Isaiah 55 and started to read.  I came across verse 8 and 9 ( go read them now so you will know where I am coming from).  As I read I couldn't help but think about the God that I serve.  We so many times think rationally in our human minds but the reality of it is is the God we serve rational in the way we think.  Think about a couple of things;  God used an adulterer to be a king to His people, He sent guys into a burning building and not a hair was singed, He allowed a servant to be put in a Lions din and nothing happened to him, he used a murderer to spread His message to the lost (Paul), He sent His only Son to die a horrible death just cleanse us from our sins and so we can have a relationship with a Holy God.  Some of this is not rational to my way of thinking but it shows His greatness.  Maybe rational is not what God wants from us maybe it is faith.  As Julie and I talked I told her I didn't want to be a pastor who didn't have faith in God's Greatness,  I am tired of just talking about having faith in God and not really trusting Him the way I should.  So here is my prayer that God will show His Greatness to me and my family in a way that could only point to His Greatness.  I told Julie if we aren't going to do ministry fully trusting God for everything then I don't want to do ministry anymore.  Julie looked at me with tears in her eyes and said ok I'm with you.  So that's how we plan to live life now wanting nothing less than God's True Greatness not my God in a box Greatness.