We have two young women in our lives who are in pain. One, Annie, our niece who lives in Arizona, is recovering from a freak accident that took place in the Grand Canyon. She has had two surgeries repairing skull and shoulder and is looking at 12 week recovery squarely in the face. The other, Aubree, our 36-year-old cousin, has just had hands and feet amputated. An initial illness required medicine that led to the end of circulation to those parts that are now no longer. Her recovery will be ... endless.
Friends of ours just moved back to a country that has become home. Cristi writes via Facebook of an apartment that doesn't feel like home and the desire to have an already signed contract broken so they can move into an apartment that better suites their family of four kiddo's who are in transition - again. She's asking for a miracle.
There are private stories with their own levels of stress. I've got a few of my own. Information trickles in and logic fights faith. On my own, I feel tiny (overwhelmed, hopeless, powerless).
This morning with overcast clouds on what should be a sunny August morning, the atmosphere fits my overall mood. I sit down in my favorite oasis that happens to be a chair facing the exterior of my apartment and I ask ... I beg God ... to let me hear from Him.
Because walking with God isn't a crap shoot - never knowing what you are going to get - but a loving relationship with a good Father, He directs me to words that fill up the places that wrong thinking has crept into and settled loosely.
The Son expresses the very character of God and he sustains everything by the mighty power of his command.*
Command means Word. Throughout the Bible, Jesus is referred to as the Word. The Holy Spirit reveals the Word. Word, according the New Living Translation Study Bible, is defined as "a force, powerful and dynamic that governs the world".
When people speak of God being real and hearing from Him, they mean that capable eyes read words in the Bible that are then filtered through their spirit - and because their spirit is connected with the Spirit of God - those words become a dynamic force that is a change agent. Those connected with God receive direction, guidance, power and instruction from reading Words that were written from divine inspiration directed to other followers of God. And that's when the SHAZAM! moments happen!
When I feel tiny, I've stopped listening as an activity. Listening to anything other than God, His Word or His Spirit dulls my faith and opens me up to all kinds of crazy for which I was not designed! Jesus, the Word, broke the power of the devil and death. The power of the devil is fear, worry, stress, trying to find logic in the midst of crazy, and all manner of self-help ways to stay positive. The mighty power of his command, the one who holds everything together by His Word, gives me solid footing in the middle of crazy life.
Annie needs to know that Jesus is all she needs.
Aubree needs to know that Jesus is all she needs.
Cristi needs to know that Jesus is all she needs.
It seems too simple to be true. I know of no other teaching that says one Word holds, keeps, transcends every situation. There is no magic formula. It's about one Word, one person, and His power to transform it all.
I need to know that Jesus is all I need.
Tiny to feeling big in an instant,
Christina
* Hebrews 1:3
