iii / in, out, overflow

LESSONS LEARNED (& learning still)

pt. 3 – The Grace in His eyes; our identity.

To fill our empty places.

Well, I’m not entirely sure if anyone will even read this anymore, because it’s been approximately 10 years since I’ve made a post, but here, at long last, is part 3. Praises.

I’ve found lately, that God has a knack for showing Himself in the places we are least likely to expect Him, yet most comforted to find Him, and that He seeks to reveal His glory and grace to each of us personally.  This past week I was reading a book in my Comp 102 class, and as we discussed the hopelessness of a culture which entirely omits the concept of a supreme entity, I have seen the constant tug of the Holy Spirit to fill our empty places, and the desperation which ensues when He is pushed away.  Without Christ’s love and fulfillment, mankind is irretrievably lost and completely purposeless, and as a result, the identity of humanity is entirely diminished.  The joy which we are purposed to have is unattainable without the meaning which Jesus brings to our lives.  However, although Christ gives man ultimate purpose, He also brings individual fulfillment.  The beauty of His love is that it is all-encompassing: He is a lover of mankind and a lover of each man in himself.

He is a God of the universal, He reigns over the macro.  No single thing escapes His notice, and nothing can outgrow His power.  We posses the hope of a God who holds all things in his fingers, and this knowledge sustains us and gives us peace.

Yet, in all his strength, His glory, His bigness, He remains the God of the infinitesimal.  The characters in 1984 lost their identity as human beings because they no longer recognized a God who gives purpose to each man.  As a result, men lost their love not only for others, but for themselves. The lives, morals, ideals, and dreams of each person no longer carried weight because there was no purpose for them to serve.  However, men have unadulterated purpose in Christ.  Because Jesus is a personal, relational God, and He seeks to show himself to us and create fulfillment and purpose inside us.

Perhaps that’s just it: we are all the things we love; maybe the way God tells us He loves us is simply a tiny glimpse, a little breath, of how He sees us.  

He sees me as that sunset last week at which I couldn’t help but stare, and the music that moves my insides.  He sees me as the coffee that I let burn my tongue in the mornings, with my sleepy eyes and hazy voice.  He sees me as the tree-filtered sunlight that makes me catch my breath, and the words I read which break me, undo me, and cause me to lose myself.  He sees us as all the things which light our souls on fire, so He breathes Himself into those places for us to find Him.  Where we see God, maybe that’s how he sees us: we are art, light, beauty, brokenness, we are creatures in desperate need of Him.  This condition is the paradox of love, the never-ending circle of grace that flows in and out, and overflows from your soul.  

So we must breathe, this air is intoxicated with love.

-allison nicole