I’m trying to make my faith personal.  As I prayed and meditated this morning I began to sing a song.  Here are the lyrics:

Your love, oh Lord, reaches to the Heavens; Your faithfulness stretches to the sky
Your righteousness is like a mighty mountain; Your justice flows like the ocean’s tide

As I sang it I realized that I say, sing, and think a lot of things about God but they’re not personal.  What I mean is though I think and believe these things, I rarely put them in a personal context: “God has been faithful to me by…” or “I have seen God’s justice demonstrated by…”

I began to sing this song after reading through a psalm I wrote a while back.  In it, I declare the following:  “I have searched the Scriptures and have found You to be merciful, gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.”  I know this is true, I have read it in the Bible.  But, again, where have I seen these things personally?

I’m not saying they aren’t there because I believe I have experienced all of these attributes of God in a personal way.  What I am saying is that I am beginning to realize how rare it is that I identify occurrences in my life as a manifestation of one of God’s attributes.  Do I believe God is all powerful and sovereign?  Yes.  Do I believe He is at work in ALL things?  Yes.  Then it makes sense that in all things a facet of God’s character is on display.  I have but to open my eyes and look!

I began to think over my recent life to examine where I could identify a Divine attribute at work.  I could think of some, but to my dismay I had a difficult time doing so.  Again, the fault is mine, not the Lord’s.  The problem is that my mind is not trained to process God in this way.  I can know these things intellectually, I can teach them, I can even rightly praise the Lord for them, but the point, I believe, is to go beyond knowing.  Jesus summons us not merely to know, but to abide.

When I think of my friends, I think of what I like about them.  Each has great qualities about them that have been demonstrated to me personally.  This is what draws me into their companionship.  It is the personal displays of love and character that strengthen our bond.

“No longer do I call you servants…but I call you friends.”  -John 15:15

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