I prayed along during our group focus time before our praise team practice,
“Lord, do something great this week. Please work in my life.”
I stopped dead in my tracks. What does “something great” really mean? I think on those broad words. A habitual phrase-- one repeated from numerous other prayers lifted up. I want Him to do something great. At least I think I do.
I run through my mental list of all the things I’m subliminally referring to when I request greatness from God. I want Him to do miracles for me, I want Him to move mountains and dry up rivers for me to cross over. I want a mountaintop arrival and the celebration of when I feel fulfilled and happy gifts pour down on my life. The job promotion, the well-behaved child, the public pat on the back, the successful ministry launch. It's human nature to assume His greatness always feels good. However, sometimes His greatness feels good, and sometimes it's just good for us.
The children of Israel weren’t in the desert long before their captivity in Egypt somehow started to seem sweet. They complained and murmured, and God heard them. They cried for food, and He gave them meat every evening and bread straight from Heaven every morning-- bread as thin as the morning dew and sweet like honey. God moved on their behalf, and it felt good… for a while. Their hearts grew used to His faithfulness, and they called His goodness inadequate and demanded new goodness. They couldn’t see because they were looking for something else.
How do I know what God deems “great”?
What if God moves in a way that I don’t feel is good?
What if God moves in a way that brings discomfort?
What if God’s idea of “something great” doesn't line up with my own plans?
Does that make Him not good?
I wrestled with my thoughts through the practice, and just like a response from Heaven, the next song in the lineup began to play. Thankful tears welling up in my eyes.
“Then sings my soul,
My Savior God to Thee,
How great Thou art,
How great Thou art.”
I took a deep breath, eyes clenched tight, I don’t want to be blinded to His goodness-- even when it doesn't look like what I imagined. God is great and I am not. Everything He does is for His glory. Everything He does is perfect and good, I just need the eyes to see, the faith to believe, and the discipline to stop keeping my expectations of God in a box.
He is all knowing.
I am only flesh and bone.
Am I qualified to judge what leaves the hand of God?
When I request God to work, I invite Him to move--
And when He moves, He is full of purpose.
His purpose is always: HIS GLORY.
“Lord, give me eyes to see all of Your acts as Gifts, instead of staring at my hands unsure of what I see. Please give me the eyes to see Your good. Remind me of your faithfulness, and fill with me anticipation for your moving, however you align it. God, would you do something great this week? I trust you.”
Kate Foster,
ARH Staff Writer
Comments