I loved the movie The NeverEnding Story when I was younger. I watched it recently with my girls and it was not as good as I remembered, but there is a depth to this movie that I still love.
So often we think of never-ending, the infinite, in terms of numbers going on forever. We rarely tie it back to anything we experience in our daily lives unless we are studying mathematics or the universe. I think this is one of the reasons why I loved this movie so much. It opened my eyes to the perspective of my life being part of a bigger story, to the idea of a living story, and it brought the infinite into my finite world.
As a child I wondered where the book of my story sat and how the pages were magically added every day, but as I have grown I see that for a story to truly be living and never-ending, the depth is found within a finite number of pages, hidden between the lines where infinite new meanings, insights, and inspirations are waiting to be discovered every time it is read. Just as the numbers between 0 and 1 stretch to infinity, the meaning buried within the lines of a never-ending story is inexhaustible.
Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
Category Archives: Glory
The Stones Are Crying Out
There is a stone tile in my shower that reminds me of the face of our Lord gazing up to His Father in Heaven and saying, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” Luke 23:34
I have looked at this tile almost every day for the last 8 years and I am always dumbfounded by the fact that our Lord created it, had men prep it and install it in this shower for the day I would notice it and then see it every day and experience, for a moment, His forgiveness and sorrow over my unrealized sins.
In just the last few days I have finally realized that not only am I experiencing an image of His great forgiveness and sorrow daily, but I am also experiencing His guarantee that if His disciples become silent, the stones will cry out. This stone is crying out.
My Sweet and Holy Lord, please do not let me be a silent disciple, teach me oh Lord to cry out in joyful praise for all of the miracles I have seen!
Luke 19:37-40
As soon as He was approaching, near the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the miracles which they had seen, shouting:
“BLESSED IS THE KING WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD;
Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”
Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Him, “Teacher, rebuke Your disciples.” But Jesus answered, “I tell you, if these become silent, the stones will cry out!”
An image of His Immensity
When I am running I like to pray and place people at the foot of His throne. I have always imaged that our Sweet Heavenly Father is big, but in the image I have conjured up in my mind I come midway up His dais if I am kneeling before Him and come up to His foot if I stand before Him. This must sound silly to most of you, but I have a very visual imagination. This morning He gifted me an amended image of His Immensity. Today as I prayed over my children’s school, in my mind I pulled their school out of the ground and lifted it up to His Throne. Instead of the normal image I see of a large room with a big school inside, He filled my mind with a new image. In this new image I saw how minuscule their school was before His throne. Their large elementary school looked like a tiny speck before the immense dais of His Holy Throne. When I looked across the vast space I saw a few more specks in the distance that I realized were large groups of people gathered and I somehow knew that these groups were families that had believed and walked in His Holy Will over many generations. If the whole earth had been placed there it would have look like a child’s toy ball laying on the ground before His Throne.
The only words that come close to describing what I saw are IMMENSE and VAST. Isaiah saw this too and described it for us, but now I have seen it in my minds eye and truly there are no words to describe it.
Isaiah 40:15 Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are accounted as the dust on the scales; behold, he takes up the coastlands like fine dust.
Sun-Kissed
We visited the Grand Canyon over the Thanksgiving Break, and I woke up to see the sunrise on our first morning. When I arrived at the rim, the canyon was still in the shadow of dawn light. The colors were beautiful, and I could clearly see the nooks and crannies deep in the canyon.
As the sun peaked over and illuminated the north-rim, the contrast became striking. The sun-kissed ridges took on new and bolder colors, while the nooks and crannies below became darker, their details fading into the gloom of shadow.
Witnessing this beauty a wedding came to mind and I thought of how quickly the beautifully dressed wedding guests fade in the midst of the groom’s great joy reflecting in the eyes of his bride as she gazes upon him. Without speech or words, but declaring through creation our Lord poured the beginning of Psalm 19 into my heart and reconnected me with Isaiah 60:1-2 in the silence of that early morning.
Oh my Lord, please let us all be sun-kissed by You as Your Glory rises upon us and let us never be deprived of Your warmth.
Psalm 19:1-6
The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they reveal knowledge.
They have no speech, they use no words;
no sound is heard from them.
Yet their voice goes out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world.
In the heavens God has pitched a tent for the sun.
It is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber,
like a champion rejoicing to run his course.
It rises at one end of the heavens
and makes its circuit to the other;
nothing is deprived of its warmth.
Isaiah 60:1-2
Arise, shine, for your light has come,
and the glory of the Lord rises upon you.
See, darkness covers the earth
and thick darkness is over the peoples,
but the Lord rises upon you
and his glory appears over you.
Breath of God
Every breath is His because it is His breath that fills each of us with the breath of life. I am in humble awe as His breath soothes me in the darkness while I listen to the soft exhales of my sleeping husband. I am humbly overjoyed as His breath tickles me as my daughter whispers sweet secrets into my ear. I am filled with sorrow as I recall a sharp and hurtful word that I spoke polluting the sweet scent of His breath, and then I am consoled as I cry out, “Forgive me” and He responds in a gentle whisper of love carried forth as I exhale.
My Lord, I pray that You guard every utterance of my mouth so that the words I speak will never again pollute the sweet scent of Your breath, but instead will carry forth from my being to bring You Eternal Glory.
Genesis 2:7 – Then the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
Come all ye faithful…
He beckons to us, calls to us and asks us to come. Come and see, come and adore, come all ye faithful, come. My friends let us go together, let us run in great joy to our Lord shouting out…
Yes, sweet Lord, we are coming, we are coming through the darkness and the light, we are coming through the valleys and over the hills, we are coming through everything and we will help each other along the way.
Thank you my Lord for making us faithful and calling to us – we are coming!
John 6:37
All those the Father gives Me will come to Me, and whoever comes to Me I will never drive away.
Strong Roots
Remember – it is trees with the strongest roots that bear the most glorious fruit!
My friends, dig deep into the Gospel, connect with others in prayer, silent or vocal, believe Him and in His wonderful promises, and LOVE – only then can you bear fruit worthy to be set before the King.
Colossians 1:9-10
… we have not ceased praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of God’s will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you may lead lives worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him, as you bear fruit in every good work and as you grow in the knowledge of God.
Glimpses of Infinity
Infinite – limitless or endless in space, extent, or size; impossible to measure or calculate.
Finite – having limits or bounds; possible to measure or calculate.
We have been given many things to help us comprehend the infinite, the sands of the earth, the drops of water in the ocean, the insects in the world, the seeds of the forests, the leaves of the trees. These things we know are finite, and yet not being able to count them gives us a tiny glimpse of infinity.
Many still debate whether our universe is infinite or finite, but I think this too is finite, yet so immense and still expanding that it offers us another glimpse of the infinite within the finite.
Without these glimpses of infinity within the finite, how could we ever hope to think outside of our box or bubble and contemplate the INFINITE Glory, Love, and Mercy of our sweet Lord?
Psalm 147: 4-5
He determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name.
Great is our Lord and mighty in power; His understanding has no limit.