It's not Thanksgiving or even close to it, but it doesn't have to be - it shouldn't have to be in order to really stop, breathe, and give thanks to God.
I feel like I've been given this assignment - as a gift for graduating this past May, I was given the book One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp. It's literally rocking my world. I'm on assignment to understand and see grace in everything, to live fully...and I'm slowly learning how.
The other day I was watching The Hunchback of Norte Damn (really you probably say?) For no particular reason I was spurred to watch a classic I had fully forgotten. Soon after pressing play I realized I was watching a sermon, many years before it's time. There's one part in the story where Esmerelda is stuck in the sanctuary to escape Lord Frollo. There she witnesses many people dressed in fine cloth, wearing gold jewelry, unscathed, fully abled - but that's not enough for them. There they are crying out of God for "wealth...fame...love...possessions" Then something profound happens, Esmerelda sees them asking for things and instead of crying out for a way out of jail or trouble, or even the harsh life of a gypsy...she says "I ask for anything, I can get by, but I know so many less lucky than I." It's the song about the outcasts. Now I'm not writing this to tell you to stop praying for things in your life. I was just sincerely convicted to realize that when I pray, I pray with blind eyes. Eyes blind to the things God has already put in front of me where I don't even see the people "less luck than I."
This is what spurred my assignment to learn how to be grateful, how to be thankful - knowing what I actually don't want is fame, wealth, or things...but a full life an abundant life.
Ask anyone of my closest friends and they will tell you, I can talk about something I'm internally processing around and around and still end up at the same conclusion - it's all a process of forgetting, remembering, learning and implementing. Some how I miss the implementation part and skip right to the forgetting all over again. Always.
In these common but important times I usually feel a certain conviction about a passion, desire or promise of mine that the Lord has given me (ie. picking a college to attend, choosing a major, what to do with my life, leaning on dreams He has birthed within me without receiving immediate revelation). It's a hard place to be in because your the only one who feels it. Only you feel the conviction deep inside, the place where the Holy Spirit manifests to create life - the in between time where you're not exactly sure what that even looks like or how it will happen.
Been there. Done that. Still doing that...
But I received amazing advise from one of the wisest people I've ever known: My mom.
She called to give hope to my dreams. Sometimes you just need people to breathe life into your sails because you've hit rock bottom and there's no gust of wind or passion that's igniting the process of movement. She breathed - telling me that I'm the only one who can feel this conviction, but that doesn't mean I'm in the wrong. It just means sometimes you've got to do the crazy, believe in the ridiculous - because Jesus did.
"The thief comes to steal, kill and destroy; I have come that you might have life, & have it to the full."
John 10:10
I love the message version and how it goes into more detail about the "full life":
"A thief is only there to steal and kill and destroy. I came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of."
than you ever dreamed of.
So then, if I am in Jesus and He is in me, I want the full life! But God is a gentlemen...
He asks what we want! what do I want?
To see Him fully. To be in a place of seeing God fully everyday, in every way, in every circumstance.
Because I know that when He is all I can see, I see no lack, no need...I only see beauty.
The whole earth is full of His glory and I want to see it because I have seen it many times and then forgotten...and so here we are again. Literally seeing God is what I a famished for. It's my heart's one desire - because beauty is all that is glory; because God is beauty and there is no beauty that does not reflect Him. Ann Voskamp's words have radically inspired me to see that when I run and chase after God, I run to experience something - to see.
I begin to starve spiritually when I can no longer see beauty in anything around me. Ann describes it as "being soul nourished." The wonderful thing about beauty is that we don't need to be taught what is beautiful - the media distorts it, but deep down when we see beauty, "we know it, in the marrow, even if we have no words for it." God himself, is beauty, He completes us.
This assignment has a hidden paradox however; if I am not seeking beauty through God, I will find "filler" beauty in something else, because I am created for worship (Rev 4:11, Is 43:7) and if I don't see God, I'll bow down to something...some thing.
"We pay tribute to God by paying attention." So it's in the seeing/seeking in the looking for beauty that we find it. When we find it, gratitude is the language we should speak...and if we don't, pray that we have eyes to see God and not something else.
When we see beauty, we automatically become hooked to see more. Our appetite grows - not for more "things" but for more of God's glory!!
When we are looking for God we are actually loving Him, because in the looking is the evidence of believing. Not feeling. I have learned this the hard way. That our feelings cannot dictate our reality or tell us what's true - our faith in believing in what we don't feel and it makes all the difference. Ann describes ingratitude as being a poison curse - but that the remedy is in what we behold.
"How we behold determines if we hold joy. Behold glory and be held by God! How we look determines how we live or if we live." This is serious. This is life and death - of the soul.
When we are beholding through our spirit, through the right inner looking, we give way to the right outer life. Which is ultimately giving glory back to our Maker. Worshiping. A saved full life.
"Faith is the gaze of our soul." Just let that seep in a bit - to permeate your soul entirely.
Seeing is the spiritual life...the looking, the waiting, the gazing for beauty and more of God is not just a one-then-done process...it's always seeing - seeking God in E V E R Y T H I N G.
Now I'm definitely preaching to myself...but I'm lovingly preaching to the choir, the church, the mentor and mentees who are never satisfied in the right way. Because the truly saved, "have eyes of faith and lips of thanks."
"Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you."
Psalm 63:3
I want to see God manifested in the world around me, in every situation, but the only way to see is with the eyes of Christ, within. Seeing through the Holy Spirit. If you've experienced beauty in life you know there is a transcendent joy that gives way to pain knowing the moment(s) are fleeting. I believe that joy comes with pain sometimes because God is stretching us to make room for more of Him...
Since I am His creation, what fills me (joy) also fills my Father - when I see truly from within I see Him and that fills Him. "God is beauty overflowing."
Joy is God's life! No wonder it's our strength!! (Nehemiah 8:10) But how my eyes see, the perspective of my seeking, is the key to entering into life, to entering into His gates - through thanksgiving alone. Because when I am in His gates, I am in the presence and in His presence is fullness of joy! But only in the looking do I see the way in.
Ann writes that, "the art of deep seeing makes gratitude possible."
Seeing. Believing. Faith. Beholding. Thanksgiving.
I. We. Are most alive when beholding God. I have an endless desire to see God which is fulfilled by and endless God. Hallelujah because I want to see God endlessly.
I am, "longing to gaze upon the Beauty of the Lord & to seek Him, the place where all the joy spills from...Beauty is what sparks the romance & we are the Bride being pursued for oneness."
I long to see God. To enter into God. To be one with God. this is what He longs for us to find.
Ann has a great line that I am still chewing on:
"Praying with eyes wide open is the only way to pray without ceasing." Because faith with inner prospective, is looking for Beauty - looking for Oneness.
When our eyes are wide open, everything we see will burn with glory, beauty, and Him!
Manifested glory which sows joy - seeing God, living fully.
Don't be afraid of the convictions, desires or passions you hold deep inside you, because when you inwardly see the beauty around you (like Esmerelda) then you behold God. In my case my dreams and convictions haven't come to pass, but reading this book has helped me see that when I inwardly look, seeking through the eyes of the Spirit, my life is full whether or not they come to pass! Fullness = me being held by God - that gives me joy. That is a full life regardless if my circumstances seem full, because: faith is the gaze of our soul.
I choose to have faith today. Praise be to God who that is All Beauty, All Loving, All Eyes.
Also I highly recommend this book! :)
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