The other night, I was at a church service and I was really asking God to do something.
I’ve just been jaded. Really, really worn down. I’ve heard every kind of sermon there is, I know all the right theology, I’ve read every bestseller, I know all the songs and what they’ll say next. It’s a bad place to be. It feels like maybe, I’ve tapped out on faith and I would never have that fiery, from-the-gut connection that I used to. I’ve gotten out of it before, but maybe this time, I would have to learn how to settle. I guess it would be okay.
This song came on. I’ve heard it before. I’ve heard it a billion times. But the second I sang the lyrics, “the Glory of God,” I totally lost it. I mean really, like I was blubbering in a dark room with hundreds of other people hoping they wouldn’t look. They looked. I didn’t care. I sang glory until my throat rolled over. I could see dust spinning in the projector; I don’t know why but it made me weep harder.
I know that emotions and all that don’t mean everything. It’s just that I was really thinking of glory, of the overpowering, overwhelming, unbearable weight of God. The galaxy-sculptor. The infuser of oxygen and orbits and musical chords. I got this really big picture of God for a moment. I was dust in a sunbeam. And I thought of Him touching the dirt of the earth, breathing the same air and singing the same songs, a God so big and yet so close, a glorious God who threw stars into space and bled in my place — and for a while, it was hard to handle. A huge God, yet intimately here.
I knew I hadn’t even begun to approach the surface of an infinitely vast God. I’m glad for that. I’m glad that my tiny, squishy, fragile little brain could even comprehend a tenth of a tenth of a tenth of Him. He’s that good. He’s got enough grace for an endless heart that’s wired for eternity.
— J.S.
J.S. Park: Hospital Chaplain 
Thanks for this post here.
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Great post, it is funny how the glory of God can become business as usual to us. I have learned as a speaker when I use words like, “God Almighty,” it invokes power into the listener, yet I can be speaking about this all powerful being while worried about many things. He is larger than we understand. He is bigger than our problems and His grace to us is more than amazing. He wants us ministry types to experience something fresh today.
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Yes, it’s always possible to do “business as usual” with anything: kids, relationships, jobs, and most especially faith. Getting underneath these things to the bigger picture is a deliberate effort.
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I can totally relate, I really can. It`s times like these God will pay you a surprise visit and heighten your sense of awareness of His greatness and it is just overwhelming emotionally and Spiritually. We all have our Spiritual ups and down, but when your down God won`t leave you there for long. God Bless you Brother…great Blog by the way, new follower.
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Thank you so much for your kind words. And what you said reminds me of a quote by C.S. Lewis:
“What seem our worst prayers may really be, in God’s eyes, our best. Those, I mean, which are least supported by devotional feeling. For these may come from a deeper level than feeling. God sometimes seems to speak to us most intimately when he catches us, as it were, off our guard.”
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So beautifully written … “threw the stars into place and bled in my place” … just beautiful. Thank-you a million times over for being real, for I have been caught in those dull stretches, too. Thank God He breaks through the barriers!
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Thank you Marni, and yes, thankful for those glimpses of beauty!
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https://radiateministries.wordpress.com/author/borkwei/
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Thanks for the encouragement J.S.
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Appreciate you, dear friend!
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When I feel like this I read the book of James…we need to learn to not waver…I know its sometimes hard..but the book of James is good inspiration
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One of my favorites, definitely.
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