“I applied my heart
to what I observed and learned a lesson from what I saw." — (Proverbs 24.32)
When
I was a kid someone came up with a new idea for entertainment — no, not offering
dinosaur rides, or an afternoon at the Coliseum in Rome to watch the gladiator
games. No - it was called 3-D movies! If you're old enough to remember this I
hope you're enjoying your senior citizen discounts. You see you'd go to the
theater and they'd hand you these glasses that looked like cereal box prize cardboard
sunglasses and you'd settle in to enjoy the 3-D (three dimensional) picture
show. But not for long - especially if it was at Disney World’s “Honey I Shrunk the Kids” 3-D show. You see, at one point
in the show there were rats that would start running towards the screen and then
right out of the screen, through the aisles and under your seats, practically
into your face! And they had other special effects to enhance the terror – like
air blowing against your legs, arms and face to make it seem like the rats were
actually rushing close by. A lady sitting next to me at the show, a total
stranger, was so scared that she dug her long, razor sharp fingernails deep
into my arm and drew blood – which made the experience even more vivid for me
(at first I thought it was one of the rats biting me!).
Of
course, if you took those glasses off it was just a flat old screen again and a
flat pack of rats – but everything on the screen was now out of focus and fuzzy.
However, when you had those glasses on, you saw things that you otherwise would
miss!
Now,
sometimes people will ask me, "Where
do you get the ideas for the analogies you use when you are teaching or writing?"
Well, our key Scripture text for these Footnotes is part of the answer, Proverbs 24.32, “I applied my heart to what I observed and
learned a lesson from what I saw." Here old King Solomon, what a wise
man he was, says, "I go out looking
for lessons in the things I see. I apply my heart to the things that I see
around me all day." You see, he has got his special lenses on to see
the hand of God in everyday stuff. There's an old hymn you may remember, “I am His, and He is Mine" where
the second verse says, "Heaven above
is deeper blue, earth below a deeper green, there's a brightness in each hue,
Christ-less eyes have never seen."[i]
If
you know God as your Father, because you put your trust in Jesus as Savior,
this is your “I am His, and He is Mine!”
He's working all around you all the time, every day, and you can see Him, you
can learn from Him, if you put your glasses on each new day — your 4-D (four
dimension) glasses to see that God-dimension that is working all around us.
If
you've been sort of moping around lately it's probably because you've lost the
perspective that David said made each day joyful. Psalm 118.24, "This is the day that the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be
glad in it." Now, who made this day what it is? You go, "Oh, my boss, man, my family made this
day, my mate, my bills, my health, my 'to-do' list makes this day what it
is." Sorry! You're stuck in the boredom of a three-dimensional world.
This is the day that the Lord has made, so you do what I recently learned one
married couple calls "going on a
God-hunt every day” — looking for the Lord in the events of your day, the
conversations of your day, the traffic jams, the delays, the surprises, the
people, the chores.
Moses
saw the Lord in a desert bush! Balaam heard God's voice through his donkey!
Levi met Jesus in the middle of a work day in his office! That's where praise
comes from, in the middle of the crummiest day. You're not looking at just your
circumstances, you're looking for your Lord at work, in your phone call, in an
accident that was avoided, in a word of encouragement, there's the Lord in that
little child, there He is speaking through that powerful storm, in the geese
going by overhead, through the tiger lilies growing wild along the road, through
some unanticipated help in your life, through the presence of a friend. You
find yourself thanking God often throughout the day, and you lose the
complaining.
Too
many times we have our God confined in our theology and our beliefs and our
church buildings ― the religious compartment of our life. Too often we cannot
see (perceive) God at work because the eyes of our hearts are closed to Him and
we don’t even expect to see Him outside our little religious box we want to
confine Him to in our minds.
The disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Why do you speak to the people in
parables?”
He replied, “Because the knowledge of the secrets of the
kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. Whoever has will be given more, and they will
have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken
from them. This is why I speak to them in parables:
Though seeing, they
do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand. In them is
fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah:
‘You will be ever
hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving. For this people’s heart
has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears,
and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear
with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn,
and I would heal them.’ But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because
they hear. For truly I tell you, many prophets and righteous people longed to
see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.” ―
(Matthew 13.10-17, NIV)
We miss out on so much because we have
“God in a box.”[ii]
Job said it this way ― “He performs
wonders that cannot be fathomed, miracles that cannot be counted. When He
passes me, I cannot see Him.” – (Job 9.10-11) But when you put on your 4-D
glasses you start to walk with your God throughout your day, you see His
fingerprints on things you never saw them on before, and God becomes real to
you!
As
the words of the song say so well, “Open
the eyes of my heart, Lord, I want to see You… to see You high and lifted up,
shining in the light of Your glory, pour out Your power and love, as we sing
‘Holy, holy, holy!’”[iii]
God wants to show Himself to you in all kinds of real stuff in your day ― but
just like I experienced, in that movie theater at Disney World, the view will
look pretty flat and fuzzy unless you put your 4-D God-hunting glasses on. However,
if you’re seeing in 4-D, the scenery of even the drabbest day comes to life
because you can perceive that your awesome God is all over it – and through His
Spirit you can begin to see what is really real!
“I keep asking that
the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know Him
better. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be
enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which He has
called you, the riches of His glorious inheritance in His holy people, and His incomparably great power for us who
believe.” – (Ephesians 1.17-19a)
In a nutshell – in Him,
Wes Shepherd
[i] Lyrics by George W. Robinson, 1876.
[ii]
God
in a Box, http://skitguys.com/videos/item/god-in-a-box.
[iii]
Lyrics and music
by Paul Baloche, 2000.
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