The Lord, your God, is in your midst,
a warrior who gives victory;
he will rejoice over you with gladness,
he will quiet you with his love;
he will exult over you with loud singing.
I don’t understand that. Yeah that. The verse I just copied and pasted above.
God, will rejoice, over me? with gladness?
Psh.
I remember thinking this summer, as I laid on the beach listening to my iPod,
about this very thing. You see, many times in my life, Yahweh has deemed it
good and profitable (and rightly so) to allow trials in my life, so that I may
treasure Him more. That is much of how He interacts with His sheep. He is a
jealous God, and a loving God, who loves us so much that He wants us to find
fullness in Him alone. This is a difficult and yet wonderful truth. It leaves us to
conclude that He Himself IS the blessing. And He is indeed enough.
I’m not about to go back on what I just said, but sometimes I wonder if I am
missing something. I think I “get” what a lot of the American church doesn’t –
that the gospel is not about prosperity and personal fulfillment, but about the
glory of God. But I think they may “get” something that I have no clue about :
that God takes pleasure in the good of His people. Now, I would still say that
that “good” includes suffering. But God delights in us as His children, and
knows how to give good gifts.
Now, God Himself : He’s enough.
He is MORE than sufficient to provide
my ultimate happiness, joy,
fulfillment, and satisfaction. He alone
is to be treasured. He is THE good
gift. But here are some tangible
examples of how He has given me
a little bit extra lately, something
I’m not really used to.
1. Since my last blog, I
have gone from 40% to 63%
in my support totals. That is a total of
$3,565 that has been pledged or donated.
WHAT?!?! (and 10% of that has been
just today.) You, my friends, are being an
incredible tangible example of the love of
God in my life. Thank you.
2. Noctiluca Scintillans.
On my birthday, I was at the beach in
snow with wonderful friends on
Long Beach Island. It was so beautiful.
There were so many stars! As we walked
back from the water, my friend Mike
stepped in the sand, and saw it glow just
like the stars in the sky around his foot.
Freaking out, he told us to do the same.
We all started jumping and stomping and
giggling. It was the most fantastic,
amazing, mind-blowing thing I have ever
seen. It was too dark to get it on film, so
here is my very fake, very poorly done
version of what we saw, so you can get a
visual picture:
Um. hello? awesome.
It was a completely wonderful
[completely unnecessary]
blessing from the Lord.
A showcase of His beauty that we had
never experienced before.
Honestly, we sorta thought we made a
scientific discovery. But after some
research, we found out this phenomenon
was called Noctiluca Scintillans, and it
was a type of microscopic, glow in the
dark, firefly-like plankton.
Yeah, you heard me. Firefly plankton.
So, thanks Lord. for blessing me when I don’t deserve it.
Sometimes I don’t know why, but you delight in doing
me good, whatever that looks like.
