Cresting the hill
Last week, I was walking along the river continuing to pray around the Lord being my portion (which I wrote about last time) and God reminded me that he is not only enough but more than enough.
God doesn’t have to try hard to meet our puny little human desires. He doesn’t need to scrape the barrel of his goodness. Always there is more.
Our lavish Father always wants to lovingly give us more. This is no crass prosperity doctrine but the very nature of God. It hugely matters to grasp this because the ancient lie is that God is niggardly. In a fallen world, trouble and pain inevitably come our way, but when that happens, more than ever, we need to know that God will give us more than enough of himself to comfort and help us through the scrapes and tumbles and even the agonising losses.
The promise is that with God, there is more than enough. That’s why the word abundant is used to describe his overflowing heart of love. It is those who receive God’s abundance of grace who reign in life (Romans 5:17). Those who think God is a mean father stay out of the party like the older brother in Luke 15. Those who think God is a mean master clutch onto their talents instead of daringly giving their lives away (Matthew 25).
God is the God of abundantly more than all we ask or imagine. God didn’t create a dull grey utilitarian world; God is the Creator of bright stars that make our souls sing, the Maker of soaring eagles and puddling green-capped ducks, of jasmine scents and cherry blossom, of warm bread and sparkling streams and music and laughter and all we love. He is the Lord who fed 5000 and 12 baskets were left over. With God, always there is more. God doesn’t only forgive us but welcomes us into the feast. God doesn’t just call us servants but friends. Always there is more.
The photo is from my visit to the staggering Conor Pass in Ireland. After winding up the mountain road, you finally crest the hill, and the view is breath-taking, a wild surprise of beauty, filling the soul, drawing the eye ever further.
For those of us who have been in church a while, we can think that we know God, that we have seen the view. Oh no! There is always more. Ever-increasing glory.
But what if we feel we can’t see it? Blind Bartimaeus heard that Jesus was passing by and he called and called. That’s where we start. Bartimaeus called and called and Jesus heard him. And to his wonder, he hears the disciples say, “Take heart, the Lord is calling you.”
When we call to him, the Lord calls us to himself. And then, if like Bartimaeus, we ask him, the Lord enables us to see. Can you imagine first seeing colour and shape? For Bartimaeus, the first face he saw was the Lord’s.
Take heart, the Lord is calling you to himself - to open the eyes of your heart to see the loving face of Christ, to see that where you lack, he does not.
“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.” Ephesians 3:20
