idiom "ingenuity"

It’s been over a month since this category has been touched. It isn’t that I am trying to reach some quota, because I’m not. Much of the following has been on my mind since the last post. Sure, life has been fun during these holidays.  I’m thankful for that. God has been very gracious to give me such a wonderful family and such fabulous and godly friends. I couldn’t possibly be more blessed than I already am.

It’s too easy to focus on myself, and so I want the rest of this post to focus on something much better–infinitely better and greater.

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It’s nigh time I realized that God is the most absolutely fulfilling Source in all of life. Certainly, I have known it, been aware of it, and even understood it. But to realize (to exist in the reality and presence of what actually is true) that God is the most wonderful and satisfying Source of all joy is something entirely different. Of course, John Piper’s familiar–yet profound–catch phrase: “God is most glorified in us, when we are most satisfied Him,” only rings more true as I realize that I am not satisfied in Him. My lack of satisfaction is found wanting, not because God cannot fulfill me, but rather, because I do not realize He can. Yes, I may know He can fulfill me, I may understand that He can fulfill me, I may even be aware that God can fulfill me–but I often find myself not existing in the presence of that reality. In other words, and more frankly, I do my best to satiate my longings and desires with other things, and of course I come out empty and more destitute than before.

Even when I “turn” to God for help in a time of need, I often do it selfishly. I go to the Word and instead of letting God’s living Word change me, I search and strive to bend any and every passage to my circumstances. I take God’s word and wrongly use it as a tool for my use in my problems. But that’s just it: God’s Word is not a tool. God’s word is living. God’s word is powerful. Scripture calls itself a “two edged sword.”  God’s Word molds me and sanctifies me; it is “quick [alive] and powerful.” It creates and sanctifies. Just as God used His Word to create the universe, His Word, having no less power now, creates within me what God finds pleasing to Himself.  Therefore, God’s Word is not a mere tool that I cultivate to become a “more spiritual” person. Rather, it is God’s Word that cultivates me to be more like Jesus Christ.

For a part of this past semester I studied through a good portion of Psalm 119. What is so interesting is that nearly every verse has some sort of reference to God’s Word, whether it be, “law,” “ways,” “prescepts,” statutes,” or another equivalent.  The teaching is so clear that God’s Word is to be delighted in. The psalmist declares his satisfaction in his exclamation, “In the way of your testimonies I delight as much as in all riches.” And then later on he states, “I will run in the way of your commandments when you enlarge my heart!” I find this statement so fascinating. It seems the Psalmist is asking God to enlarge his heart so that he might more fully love and enjoy the precious ways of God more fully than he already does. What satisfaction to be found! What need for realization!