Heart to heart feet off the ground

I used to play a game with my son, Michael, when he was little.  I would say, "Do you know how much I love you?"  And he would say, "No, how much?"  And I would say, "As big as the sky!"  And then he would say, "Mommy, do you know how much I love you?"  And I would say, "No, how much?"  And he would say, "As big as the back yard!"  For someone two feet tall our back yard was really big.  And I would say, "Michael, do you know how much I love you?"  And he would say, "How much?"  And I would say, " As big as the whole world!" And we would keep on going for a bit until one of us said, "As big as the Universe!"  Usually that was me because Michael knew what was coming next. I would fling open my arms and hug my little boy with a heart-to-heart, feet right off the ground and into the sky kind of hug!  Ya'll know what I mean?

Well, I started thinking about Jesus and Who He is-as I said a few days ago, I really want to set my mind on the Love of the gospel message-the love of God and the love of Jesus.  So, where to start?  The beginning seemed like a good place.  If I am going to get this love, really get it, I need to understand where Jesus came from.  The beginning of the love story between Jesus and man is what I set my mind on. 

As I was pondering this, I found a book I haven't looked at in a while called The Hand of God, Thoughts and Images Reflecting the Spirit of the Universe.  This book has pictures from the Hubble Telescope of many of the wonders in our Universe and a whole lot of quotes from those who look into the heavens and from those who try to make sense of what they observe.  I don't want to get into the various philosophies presented-is God revealed in the Universe, can religion and science co-exist, and what about the Big Bang or the theory of quantam mechanics as it pertains to God?  If you want a really great spot to go to for those kinds of discussions, check out Ravi Zacharias website: http://www.rzim.org/.  More to the point-reviewing this book and looking at the pictures and quotes made me stop and think.  I mean, since I do believe in eternity, and I do believe that the Biblical predictions of the Old Testament came true in Christ and that the Biblical predictions in the New Testament will likewise come true in Christ, the pictures gave me an appreciation for the Heavens!  The bigness and vastness of creation are manifested there in mind boggling array!

Swirls of stars, cosmic plumes of dust, unreachable planets, comets, black holes, pulsars, icey domains and firey furnaces fill our Universe and its many solar systems.  You can go and look at the Hubble Telescope website: http://hubblesite.org/ and see the most amazing pictures like these and yet, we still haven't seen to the end of the Universe and we never will.  Remember that word "grandiose?"  The Universe is definitely grandiose! What power and intelligence and creative beauty is manifested in its creation.

And the God who designed it all was in the beginning of it all. In the first book of John is one of those astonishing passages for it gives us an infinite peak into the beginning of all that we can discover or experience:  "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being by Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.  In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. (John 1:1-4)"  So God was not alone!  He was with the Word when He created our universe and all it contains.  It begs you to ask the question...who?...doesn't it?  Who is the "Him" of this passage; who is the "Word" that was with God?  And then John answers that question:  "There was the true light which coming into the world, enlightens every man.  He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him.  He came to His own and those who were His own did not receive Him.  but as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.  And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth." (John 1: 9-14).

"I am the Word, the truth and the life," said Jesus of Himself.

So, the Word stepped out of the eternal, creative being who was with God, who created the Universe, and left that vision, that glory, that wonder, and that power to become flesh, to become limited in time and space.  Oh what a beginning!  How incomparable is our Savior.   How vast is the depth of His love for us!  It's a real heart-to-heart feet off the ground and into the sky kind of love!

Grandiose!

Yesterday I was thinking about setting my mind on things that please God.  I think focusing on God's love is something I need to do more often, to be grateful, to develop security in my place with God, and even to protect me from my own folly.  In Romans 8:38-39 Paul tells us how to think about the love of God:  "For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

What security!  And what a deep, vast resource to draw from, to depend upon, to rely on!

Whenever I turn on my computer I see my husband standing in front of the Grand Canyon.  I love this picture of him and I was so amazed by the Grand Canyon.  We rode in a helicopter down into it and around it.  This is a picture of one of the many views out of the helicopter window! That's the mighty Colorado River down there. 

Then we drove it's rim and got out and looked.  Over and over again I felt this incredible feeling of awe.  Each view, each vista was just as incredible as the one before, so indescribable.  It just blew me away and I thought "grand" just wasn't enough of a title for it-why not amazing, stupendous or even grandiose canyon!                                                                           Recently I have been thinking a lot about just how great the love of God really is...you know, trying to wrap myself up in it, to get a hold of it, to really let it come behind me and go before me.  It is gradiose, this love of God!  Grandiose is defined in my Roget's Thesauras as "imposing, impressive, larger-than-life, awful, awe-inspiring, awesome; sumptuous, elegant, elaborate, luxurious, extravagant, deluxe!"  So for the next several posts I hope to explore and record some of what God shows me about his grandiose love as I look from vista to vista and think on it, set my mind on it.  I think I will be blown away and I hope you'll join me here with a glass of sweet tea whenever you can!

Oh for Goodness Sake, What were you thinking?

Have you ever heard that from one of your parents?  Well, if you’re not from the South, maybe you only heard the second part, but I bet you heard it one time or another!  This spasm of parental chastisement usually underscored some incredibly stupid act which was done without any thinking at all and, because of this parental response, was immediately recognized with the thought, “Oh boy, now I am in for it!”  And our minds would have to suffer some sort of training, perhaps a lecture, perhaps a punishment, perhaps just the stomach aching knowledge that once again our thinking was deficit in the eyes of our parents (I am so disappointed in you!)

The result? This link between action and mind was made very clear to us.

Where do we dwell?  Where do we really live?  Most people would say “in our bodies” first, but if pressed would have to conclude that our mind is really the seat of our lives.  It is there that we process whatever happens to our bodies.  It is there that we make decisions on what we will do each day with our bodies.

Paul, speaking to his fellow Christians at Phillipi, instructs them to think on “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, let your mind dwell on these things”  (Phillipians 4:8, NAS). 

This got me thinking!   Isn’t it amazing how one thought can generate a single kind act or a lifelong pursuit of actions.  I think of Mother Theresa who has said that seeing a poor person on the streets of Calcutta motivated her to give her life to the service and comfort of the poor and of my dear friend Charles Buregeya who saw the thousands of street children of Rwanda and decided he would help them (check out his ministry at www.anlm.org).  I wonder at the composition of Amazing Grace by John Newton during a terrible storm at sea,  of Handel’s Messiah written in just 24 days, of Beethoven’s  Symphony No. 2 written at the beginning of his deafness http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2LeoGs6ObY&feature=player_detailpage, of Fanny Crosby, the blind woman who composed over 8000 songs of praise to God in her head before dictating them to others to write out, of C. S. Lewis and the many brilliant works he gave us to help us understand the scriptures.  I have gazed at the amazing works of Michelangelo and Van Gogh, where the beauty of the body takes your breath away and you almost feel the wind blowing across the field of flowers, pushing the clouds along.  I have sat mesmerized during concerts when the music stirs the soul to sorrow or joy!  And I have heard sermons or read works that so acutely address our life’s needs and so magnificently lift the soul to worship that I am almost swept away! 

Our minds are so amazing-to be able to create beauty for others to enjoy in sound, in sight, in printed word-what a treasure.  Is that not the part of us that God breathed into us, that part of us that sets us above the rest of our earth’s inhabitants?  This ability to create, to lift other ups with our talents and our gifts, is Divinely given!  Yet so quickly we sink into self-absorption, into daily petty arguments, into righteous indignation at slights which are laughable against the backdrop of what we are truly capable of doing for one another.   How then, can we hope to enjoy one another and what we truly have to offer one another?  The Bible instructs us in part to “set your mind on the things above.”  Jesus gives us marching orders too, intended to help us: “Love one another just as I have loved you and love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind.”  There are a lot of wonderful, true, honorable, right, pure, lovely, good, excellent, praiseworthy things in our world, many of them right around us.  I hope my blog will encourage you today to open your eyes and hearts to see them, to hear them, to feel them and to experience a joyful day as you think on these things .