Monday, January 31, 2011

His Fingerprints

A God glorifying tool. Hmm.. I mentioned this in a previous post, The Double-Edged Sword, because I wanted to remind myself that this public journey I have embarked upon was one that I didn't want to end up using for a strictly self serving purpose. I'm sure this comment sent some readers running for the hills, never to check in on my blog again, left others confused and others somewhat intrigued. What would a blog look like that was supposed to be God glorifying for 365 days? Well, to be honest I wasn't even really sure at the time I wrote that. I just knew that this was going to be my purpose and I encourage you to see what I mean by that. I will get back to this statement, I promise, but for a moment I'm taking a quick detour.

Last night at the Doctrine & Theology class that I blogged about in my last post, we hit another fantastically fascinating topic. God's creation. Now, this is quite a topic...one that I can barely even touch the surface of in a short blog post, but I will throw out some interesting facts and what stood out to me personally. As I was listening to the pastor speak, instantly a song came to mind by George Straight. If any of you are country fans, like myself, you will recognize these lyrics.

I Saw God Today

Just walked down the street to the coffee shop
Had to take a break
I'd been by her side for 18 hours straight
Saw a flower growin' in the middle of the sidewalk
Pushin' up through the concrete
Like it was planted right there for me to see
The flashin' lights
The honkin' horns
All seemed to fade away
In the shadow of that hospital at 5:08
I saw God today

I've been to church
I've read the book
I know he's here
But I don't look
Near as often as I should
Yeah, I know I should
His fingerprints are everywhere
I just slowed down to stop and stare
Opened my eyes and man I swear
I saw God today

Saw a couple walkin' by they were holdin' hands
Man she had that glow
Yeah I couldn't help but notice she was startin' to show it
Stood there for a minute takin' the sky
Lost in that sunset
Splash of amber melted in the shades of red

I've been to church
I've read the book
I know he's here
But I don't look
Near as often as I should
Yeah, I know I should
His fingerprints are everywhere
I just slowed down to stop and stare
Opened my eyes and man I swear
I saw God today

Got my face pressed up against the nursery glass
She's sleepin' like a rock
My name on her wrist
Wearin' tiny pink socks
She's got my nose, she's got her mama's eyes
My brand new baby girl
She's a miracle
I saw God today

Okay, so sappy mommy moment, but that song just kills me. After having two little miracles myself, this song strikes me much more so than it did the first time I heard it. Not only does the part about the little baby girl hit me, but the chorus does as well. How often we go through life without taking the time to slow down and see just how much the Lord's fingerprints are everywhere... this beautiful life we see everyday begs us to look to the creator.. I'm not saying that everything about this world is beautiful by any means because as we all know there are horrible things that happen everyday due to us living in a fallen world, but I'm talking about creation. A picture as beautiful and perfect as a amber sunset or a baby being born had to be made by a spectacular artist and I don't know about you, but that is someone I would gladly like to invest my time in getting to know.

Anyways, the topic of creation was so interesting to me and another part of the class also hit home. My pastor was talking about how God created us to bring glory to Him. Well, this does not at all mean that we have to be sitting in a church every moment of the day and praying to bring glory to God. How boring that would be! God gave us each other and all kinds of blessings in this life. Part of the notes from my pastor explained it like this:

As part of our goal to "glorify God and enjoy Him forever," we are called to glorify Him in whatever we do (so long as it is not sin). Part of this is enjoying all the blessings He has given us, whether part of His creation or part of our creation that we create from His creation (so long as we don't idolize or abuse them). 


He then went on to name many different things that could be considered on this list of blessings given by God that when we are enjoying (as long as not sinning in doing so) are all ways of showing glory to God. Just a few on the list included cars, baseball, friends, beer, watching movies, iPhones, sex, ice cream, etc.

A fabulous quote by Martin Luther was then read, "You know, there's stars in the sky and certain astrologers worship them. If it's causing them to stumble, then we have to find a way to take them down." Of course he is joking but isn't that an interesting point! Definitely hits home once again with me and Facebook.

A key thing stood out in my mind as I listened last night. Just because I want to make my blog a God glorifying tool does not mean my blog is going to be constantly only quoting scripture and basically becoming a modified Sunday school lesson each time I get on to put my thoughts into words. Sharing stories about the many blessings in my life, posting pictures of my kids as they are reaching new milestones, talking about something I have learned from a friend, enjoying a darn good beer or fabulous glass of wine I stumbled upon or a song that touched my heart are all ways of bringing glory to God! Now, I'm not saying that I won't be quoting scripture or talking about Jesus, because my goal is for the word of the Lord to be the biggest influence in my life. But, what a freeing feeling! Makes me think about my blog in a whole new way. Instead of looking at it as being a blog with a list of instructions attached, now it is far from that. Sadly, I think that when most people think about the Bible they think of it as a manual for life. A list of what to do and what not to do. It is SO much more than that! I will have to blog on that topic at another time. But here is a final thought that intrigued me from last night.

We are created worshipping. Why does the word worshipping keep telling me that I'm spelling it wrong? Aren't there two p's in worshipping? lol. Anyways, once again I'm ignoring the little red dots, and back to my point. We are worshipping all the time. When we are not glorifying God, we are glorifying something else. I know that when I'm not glorifying God I'm usually glorifying myself, sometimes to the extent that I forget why I need God in the first place. 

I have no idea what I am going to blog about the next time I choose to log in, but now I have a new excitement knowing that it is not as hard as I may think to bring glory to the one that created us through my writing. It's funny because I never even thought about this when I was on Facebook. My goal was never to bring glory to God through my posts. I was not trying to unglorify God by any means, but I wasn't conscious of it! Most of the time I was self seeking. I think that fact alone would drastically change my time spent on Facebook if I ever choose to log back in to my personal account.. At this point I don't know if I will ever get a desire to spend my time on Facebook again. I will just have to see where my heart is in a year I suppose. In the meantime, I'm enjoying sitting back and in the words of George Strait, enjoying His fingerprints that are all around us. I definitely have seen God today.

 Sawyer now 10 months old! 

 Addy decided it would be fun to water her brother... lol. 

My Addyson 2 1/2

1 comment:

  1. Beautiful pictures! Can't wait to have aplaydate this week!

    ReplyDelete

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