I have been thinking about how, in it's simplest form, the message of our relationship with God is that we are containers for His glory. My mind ran to these wonderful clear boxes with blue lids that they sell at WalMart that we have chosen to organize our previously disorganized lives with. I'm embarrassed to tell you how many we have bought, but the number is not a lot unlike the stars in the sky that God promised Abraham He would fill.
If God shopped at WalMart--and I say this in total reverence to loosely illustrate my point--I think He would use boxes like these to store His Treasures. In His grace though, He has given us--the boxes--a will of their own. We are allowed to choose if we will let Him fill our storage capacity up with what He wants to put in, or will we--
* Never open the lid for Him?
* Be so concerned with having the prettiest decoration on the outside (rather than its storage purpose), making it impossible to see inside?
* Look at the box next to itself and wish it had what it has inside.
* Try to mislabel our box.
* Take on so many heavy things in our box that when the Owner tries to pick it up, it's so heavy the handle comes off and rather than using what He had stored, He has to stop and put the handle back on so He can carry it to where its needed. Or He has to sort out all the miscellaneous things that we containers have opened our lids to.
Of course, He never minds the sorting process and loves His boxes so much that He never minds sorting or fixing, but when the boxes cooperate, it makes Him happy. God knows exactly what He wants to store in our containers and they fit perfectly on His shelves. He has purchased them all, even though He knows the mischievous containers jump off shelves, throw useless stuff in, and graffiti the outside. "But this precious treasure, this light and power that now shine within us, is held in perishable containers, so everyone can see that our glorious power is from God and is not our own." II Cor. 4:7
1 comment:
OK, John and Gloria, I keep trying to put a face with what I am reading and I can't figure out if I'm looking at John or Gloria. Or is it that you each write every other word? Whoever it is, is certainly thinking outside the box. Or would that be thinkin' inside the box? Whichever, I do want him to fill me up with all that He desires. Thanks for sharing.
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