Clearly seeing

I am, for the moment, in one of the most beautiful places on this planet.  The wonders His hand has made are breath taking, overwhelming....incredible to the senses.  My sight, smell, hearing and touch are assaulted on every side....it is truly a paradise.  As I was reading through my devotions this week I have come back several times to this verse...




"From the time the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky and all that God made.  they can clearly see his invisible qualities....his eternal power and divine nature.  so they have no excuse whatsoever for not knowing God."  Romans 1:20

So I'm thinking that in the seeing of His handiwork...I am seeing His very person expressed in physical form....God...with us....wow...I have long known that nature is the very expression of God....but seeing it in this context reminds me that He truly is with us, all around us, even inside us in the air we breathe...through His creation....no wonder it has such a powerful effect!

 

Sitting in the Airport and seeing God.

I spent a good bit of time this past weekend sitting in the Atlanta airport...much of it, just watching the people go by...and man were there a lot of them!...this is the busiest airport in the world so literally hundreds of people were passing me by.  Short and tall, skinny and stocky, young and old, dark and fair...no two of them the same...So much endless variety!   At one point I had a beautiful epiphany....I was seeing God...right before my own eyes....Each and every one of them was made in His image...a representation of The Creator!  He is So infinitely big, so diverse, and has so many facets that He easily encompasses all of humanity, stamping His face on each one of us.  Wow!  Even  those who have no acknowledgement or relationship to Him...there they were, hurrying past me, never even knowing that I was seeing the God of the universe in their faces. 

Family is Dangerous!

I have been looking for Emmanuel this season and as I look around, what do I see?   I see people...and every one of them a member of a family....small or large, solid or fractured...single parent, blended, adopted, immediate, extended...blood or choice...all kinds of families...sharing connections between themselves that cannot be erased.  So many this time of year are rejoicing, excited to be together, to give and share and love, happy and beautiful....so many others, are fragile, dreading the being together, saddened by loss or past hurts, feeling isolated even in the midst of those who know them best....

Recently I was reminded of something while sharing with a young wife and mother....marriage and in fact families in general are a prime target for our enemy, Satan, and though I don't like to give him much credit I do understand his position.  He has to try, people...he has to....
Every marriage, every family, every household, not just Christian families or whole and happy families, but even the broken ones, even the dysfunctional ones, even the mixed up messed up disastrous ones.... ALL families....are targeted for destruction...but WHY??!!  Because...the truth is...Family is just too dangerous....

How can family be dangerous for Satan?  I mean...really?

I'll tell you how....Because family is spiritual...it came right out of God....every one of them, every single one of them....is a representation, a likeness, a witness if you will... of God Himself.  His Triuneness, His Oneness, His Love, His commitment.  Families are, even if unwittingly, a picture of God's relationship with His Son, His relationship with His Church, with His Family both near and those afar off.....and even if the earthly view is broken, cracked and distorted, damaged almost beyond recognition...and it always will be to some degree in this earthly realm...still, in each family a small imagine of Him remains...living, moving, breathing on the earth...a likeness always imperfect, often dim, and sometimes almost completely obscured...but still...a representation, no matter how slight...of Deity....God with us.