What keeps you from seeing God everywhere and in everything?
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"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God" (Matthew 5:8 NLT).
"You're blessed when you get your inside world—your mind and heart—put right. Then you can see God in the outside world" (Matthew 5:8 MSG).
There are people who see no evidence of God. There are people who see God everywhere and in everything. As Eugene Peterson notes in his paraphrase of this verse in The Message, we cannot see God everywhere in everything until we get our hearts and minds right with God.
C. S. Lewis in The Problem of Pain said, "It is safe to tell the pure in heart that they shall see God, for only the pure in heart want to."
The questions of the day then are these:
1. Do you want to see God?
2. What's stopping you?
What obstacles stand between you and God? Remove them.
What blinds you to his beauty and wonder? Exchange those lenses.
Maybe so few people are capable of seeing God everywhere in everything because they don't really want to see God, but themselves writ large, amplified, maximized, large and in charge. We can't see God everywhere in everything because we fill up all the available space with ourselves.
The more of me everywhere in everything, the less of God anywhere in anything.
The pure in heart make ample room for God because they know whatever he adds is far superior to anything they put away.
You can see God everywhere in everything today when you trade whatever you have for whatever he offers. It is an unfair exchange. He always gives better than we deserve and more than we can contain. He gives more so we can share his abundant beauty and wonder everywhere in everything.
Our Father, I want to encounter you everywhere in everything all the time. Here and now, I make room for more of your goodness, grace, mercy, and kindness by removing anything in the way. Amen.
 | David Bowman, (DMin, PCC) is the Executive Director of Tarrant Baptist Association in Fort Worth, Texas. He also serves as a Multiplying Trainer for Future Church Co. Learn More » |
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