"She never tired of looking from the glorious new viewpoint on the first slopes of the Kingdom of Love and seeing it all from a new perspective. What she could see and could take in almost intoxicated her with joy and thanksgiving, and sometimes even with inexpressible relief. Things which she had thought dark and terrible and which had made her tremble as she looked up from the Valley because they had seemed so alien to any part of the Realm of Love were now seen to be but parts of a great and wonderful whole. They were so altered and modified that as she saw what they extended into, she wondered at having been so blind and stupid at having had such false ideas about them.
She began to understand quite clearly that truth cannot be understood from books alone or by any written words, but only by personal growth and development in understanding, and that things written even in the Book of Books can be astonishingly misunderstood while one still lives on the low levels of spiritual experience and on the wrong side of the grave on the mountain."
[This excerpt is from a book called Hinds' Feet on High Places by Hannah Hurnard. It's an allegorical tale of a girl and her journey to the High Places. ]
How many times have I been so focused on me and my circumstance that I have missed the Big Picture?
Our God is a BIG God. Let me help you understand this...He has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand (Isaiah 40:12) and He can hold seven stars in His hand (Revelation 1:16). Not like gold star stickers, but flaming heavenly bodies. That is a really big God. And being a big God, He has a big plan--a plan for the entire world to know Him, for them to see His Truth and rejoice in Him (2 Peter 3:9). So He calls us to go. To go to our neighborhoods, our country, to the ends of the earth. (Matthew 28:19-20, Acts 1:8).
But if you are honest with yourself, that is scary. To go where you've never been before, to tell people about Someone that they may have never heard of and if they have heard of Him, they might not be a big fan of Him. There's a catch to this, though, we do not go alone. God, our glorious Father, goes before us and is with us wherever we go. He will never leave us or forsake us. (Deuteronomy 31:8) And he is faithful to do what he says (Isaiah 46:11).
All we have to do is surrender to Him and seek His face.
And with that, there is no fear (1 John 4:18, Romans 5:5). Once we trust in Him to do what He promises and to provide, our eyes are opened, and the scary things aren't scary anymore because our best interest is being looked after by a God who is bigger than we could ever imagine and sovereign beyond all belief.
