Several years ago, I attended a conference in Phoenix. I had a few days before returning home and decided to go to the Grand Canyon with several friends. This was a long term dream of mine but I had no idea just how magnificent . . . how truly grand a place this was.
Visual & sensory overload would be the best descriptors. There was just too much to possibly absorb. I felt small and God seemed so big. There were many places, most in fact where you could help yourself to the very edge.
I am afraid of heights. On the occasions when I have been on my rooftop, I have been incredibly uncomfortable. For some reason I found myself “on the edge”. There was this huge rock outcropping that called me to the brink. I looked down, already overwhelmed, to the depths below me and for some unexplainable reason, I was not afraid. I think it was because it was too vast to register on the fear scale, sort of like the view of the earth from the window of the airplane. I stood there, lost in the wonder of creation. Every so often I would have a wave of fear brush by me, to realize that I was unprotected and vulnerable.
In my heart, I imagine this to be like the day that I stand before a totally awesome God. Overwhelmed . . . defenceless . . . so insignificant in my self . . . so mysteriously loved and forgiven . . . so significant in Him. Totally guilty . . . totally pardoned . . . freed by God’s declaration of Calvary grace. In so many ways, brothers and sisters, this God calls us each to live on the edge, totally within His inconceivable wonder and His unfailing, matchless Presence.
You can choose to play it safe . . . but in so many ways, this is a choice to serve a diminished likeness of the God of the Universe. Your living will show it too. It would be like presenting yourself as a travel agent and charging people the price of an airline ticket to look at a picture album . . . and then telling them that because they had seen a picture, they had been there. That’s what it’s like to attach yourself to other people’s experience of God and to try to live off of that. So many professing Christians live off of other people’s perspectives, experiences and outlooks.
In this new year, I pray that God will take you to the edge of this world where you can truly see the depths of His Love for you.
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