“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us,” Ephesians 3:20 NIV
There is an email going around that says something to the effect of “Don’t tell God how big your problems are. Tell your problems how big your God is.”
Sometimes, I forget that. Sometimes, I look at everything that is happening in our lives and think, “Wow, there is no way out of this one.” But there always is. I may not get the answers to prayer that I ask for, but there is always an answer.
I have learned that what I focus on is the important thing. Do I focus on my body and it’s contrariness, or do I focus on my God. Why focus on God? Because He can do (and does!) more than I can even think or hope for. More than I can even imagine.
No, the pain doesn’t always go away. But I do get through it. No, my plans have not turned out the way I hoped. But He gives me new ones. No, I do not always respond the way I wish I would. But He gives me encouragement – in His word, or in the lyrics of a song, or a an on-line sermon or Christian book – that helps me “keep on keeping on.”
I watched the movie “Flower Drum Song’ the other night and God used that movie to help me look beyond myself with these words.
“My father says that children keep growing,
Rivers keep flowing too.
My father says he doesn't know why,
But somehow or other they do.
--They do! some how or other they do.--
A hundred million miracles,
A hundred million miracles are
happ'ning ev'ry day,
And those who say they don't agree
Are those who do not hear or see.
A hundred million miracles,
A hundred million miracles are
happ'ning ev'ry day”
Father God, thank You that there is not a box big enough to put you in. Thank You that in your hands “a hundred million miracles are happening every day” when we focus on You. Amen and Amen
*Flower Drum Song 1958 Rogers & Hammerstein
(Devotional first published by Rest Ministries 2009)