When You Really Need to See God

Megan Breedlove August 25, 2014 0 Comments

Only one flight away from reaching home after a week-long absence, I was waiting at the airport for my plane to arrive at the gate. I don’t mind waiting in airports; being by myself gives me a chance to, well, be by myself. I can read or surf the web for a little while without worrying about being interrupted.

But I knew my children were eager for me to be home. They had called me almost every evening during my absence, and that day (as my husband told me through text messaging) they were getting anxious to have me back. So when my plane pulled up to the gate, I took a picture of it, and I texted it to my husband so he could show it to the kids and tell them Mommy’s plane was almost ready to bring me home.

I expected to receive a text back from him that said something like, “Yay! They can’t wait!” But the text I got instead said, “They want to see a picture of YOU. Take a selfie.” So I managed to take a selfie that didn’t make me look like I was looking into a fun-house mirror (it’s always awkward to get the right angle), and I sent it.

I thought it was sweet that they wanted to see me, not just my plane. I understood why. When you miss somebody, you want to see the person herself, not just a picture of a metal tube with wings. When you long for someone, you want her presence, not just a shot of the vehicle that will bring her to you.

It’s the same way with God—only sometimes, we don’t realize it. Here’s what I mean: what we really need, spiritually speaking, is God’s presence. We need God Himself. The problem is that we sometimes think that what we really need are the benefits He provides—and His presence, while a nice add-on, isn’t strictly necessary.

We couldn’t be more wrong. Yes, we need God’s strength, comfort, wisdom, and so on. But they are not commodities God dispenses apart from His presence. They only come to us when we are in His presence.

When you ask God for strength, and He gives it to you, it’s because God has shown up in your situation to help you handle it. When you weep for His comfort and receive it, it’s because God Himself is there, putting His arms around you. When you need wisdom to know what to do in a particular situation, and suddenly it’s there, that’s because God Himself is nearby, sharing His thoughts with you.

Never forget that God is a very personal, intimate God who longs for a deep relationship with you. How it must grieve Him when you—or I—desperately beseech Him for things He can do for us, never realizing that what we really need is He Himself. That’s what Jesus meant when He told His followers to seek God first, and they would not only have Him, but they would have everything else they needed.

Not only that, but God won’t just sort of mail His responses to you while He sits up in heaven somewhere, distant. He’s going to deliver them to you personally, which works out great, because what you really want is not merely the gift. You want God to show up, and that’s what He’s promised to do.

Don’t set your sights so low as to ask merely for the gift when you could have the Giver, too.

Matthew 6:33—But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. (ESV)

Jeremiah 29:13-14a—You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the LORD.

Created by God

Megan Breedlove August 4, 2014 0 Comments

My 9-year-old son Kenny has recently developed an interest in origami. He loves checking out how-to books from the library and spending hours at home folding square papers into intricate creations. He’s really good at looking at the instructions and then producing the desired outcome.

I, on the other hand, am not. Recently, Kenny tried to teach me to make an origami crane. I tried—really, I did—but I kept getting lost or doing something wrong. “Well, that’s okay. It’s only your first try,” Kenny would say. Or, “Well, that’s one way to do it. But how about you do it like this?”

I admire his abilities, especially since they are in an area in which I am not skilled. I also admire the amount of effort and persistence it takes to produce a whole dining room table full of creations, and then some.

But as impressive as Kenny’s abilities are in creating his works of art, God’s abilities in creating you and me are even more impressive.

After all, God started with nothing. No instructions, no raw materials. He uses the process of two tiny cells coming together, but it is ultimately He who grants life to the combination of cells, thereby forming a person. And He is the One who arranges for the exact combination of DNA to occur in order to produce the human being He wants to create.

Your life was not an accident.

Your particular combination of genetics, skills, and personality is not an accident.

Nor were they determined by your earthly mother and Father.

They were ordained—chosen, appointed—by God.

Just as Kenny sets out to create something he has in mind, God set out to create you. In fact, He had you in mind since before the world began. Then, at just the right time, He caused just the right DNA to combine to create the you He wanted you to be, and He breathed life into that teeny, tiny one-celled human being.

Some of you may have grown up being told that you are nothing special. Maybe you were rejected not by your parents, but by a friend, family member, or even spouse. But God didn’t think of you before the foundation of the world, and then go to all the trouble to make you just as He did, because He was creating junk. He created you according to the design of His infinite creativity and declared you to be a marvelous creation.

You, precious mom, were designed and brought to life by God. You have the particular qualities and characteristics that you do because He made you that way. Why? Two reasons. First, He has a plan for you and your life, and He made you according to the exact specifications necessary to enable you to fulfill that plan. And second—and I hope this touches you deep in your heart, just as it touches me—He wanted an intimate relationship with a person like you.

Have you ever thought about that? That God wanted a relationship with someone just like you? It’s true. No one else in this world will relate to God in exactly the same way you will, and that’s by His design.

What an incredible thought—that Almighty God, who doesn’t need anybody, wanted you and me.

Think about that this week. Let it sink into your soul.

Psalm 139:14—I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.