overflow

Photo By: Kasia Koniar

Your name is a strong and mighty tower, your name is a shelter like no other, your name, let the nations sing it louder … nothing has the power to save, but your name…

I looked ahead, through the rows of heads.  Towards the front was a little girl.  She was shorter than the crowd. Her golden-red locks are a mystery now (were they locks or braids?) not mattering nearly as much as the finger she had pointed to the sky.  Pressed, high above her head, was one finger extended out against the rest … and she was stretching towards the one who made this moment.  “Your name” rang softly around me like a chorus I’d never really heard well before.  I heard only those words, as the rest of the song faded in the presence of a tiny index finger.  It began to point higher, faster … as if to say, “He’s the one! Don’t you see it!?  I know this!  And I’ve met him! He’s the ONE!!!”

I looked around … tears blurred my sight and I realized she was the only one.  This girl, probably about 7 years old, was the only hand raised in that moment.  I felt like a fly, on the wallpaper of a moment so precious only God knew the heart of it.   In reality, only he does.   But I was standing, watching, and He was covering me with his love through her.   She was pouring love on me with no comprehension of my existence.

And as the music played she danced with no reaction from the friend sitting beside her.  Still, she danced.  It was not invasive or annoying to the people around her, but a dance nonetheless.  We were here, at a non-denominational service, 11:30 am, and I was witnessing beauty. And when the time was right another hand went up beside her; and they worshiped together.  Perhaps it was her mother?  I imagined this was so.  Perhaps this was something they shared in moments no one else saw.  But, what I thought didn’t matter.  This moment was, and this mattered.

How often have you wanted to make a difference?  You came to serve and give your life and serve you did … you did it well.  You thought that by doing, you’d somehow bless others and that would bless God.  And perhaps, in the process you’d become closer to Him.  Perhaps this God thing would just rub off.

God’s way of doing things is different than our own.  His plan for us includes timing, where the burden is light and our spirit rejoices in the ease of His presence.  Often we take his plan and timing, smacking it around until it becomes something burdened and broken.   If only we would listen.

In the beginning, God established relationship with his creation.  He walked and talked with them until they did the one thing they were not meant for.  And everything changed … almost.  God did not change in his love for them.  HE still pursued their hearts.  He still asked the difficult questions.  And God did not stop the story of healing for mankind.  He wants relationship with us!

So he tells us: ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’  This is the first and greatest commandment. The second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’  All the law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.  Matthew 22:37-40

So often we manage to miss commandment one and favor commandment two.  We flip them, placing a burden on our shoulders. We see the benefit of helping others, of loving them and serving them.  But, we’ve forgotten that God has to come first.  He has to be our first love or the service … the loving others, will become a bondage.

Is God so mysterious that we can’t love Him?  Or is it that we don’t believe because He is so other than we are?   The beautiful thing about this mystery is that it’s given to us; and He’s not hiding.  He’s opened His life to us, His home, His story, and He is our family if we have given Him our life.  And you understand family, right?

There are rows and rows of people just waiting for help; and if we take a moment to really see what’s around us … whose around us, the weight of the world would crush anyone.  ‘So, we’d better get started,’ we think.  But, God has already finished the work.

He sees, He knows, and He’s there.  Each of us has a part to play, but if we’re missing HIM, we miss it all.

God’s ways are so other than our own.  When we throw ourselves at his feet, laugh in the light of his presence, dance with his arms around us, and LISTEN … He just pours out.   We are changed when we encounter the Lord.  His word becomes a lamp to our feet, we are protected and fed in the desert and water pours out from the most unlikely places.

Enjoying Jesus will always bless others.  You won’t be able to help it!  God showed up today and poured his love over me as a little girl chose to lift her arms in worship.  She didn’t know I existed, but God did.  Don’t you see?  It’s His work, it’s His molding and making that is being accomplished; and none of us are the Potter.

So, let yourself be molded. Look to HIM, LOVE HIM with all your heart, your entire mind and all your soul.  He’ll see to your overflow … even if you don’t know it’s happening.