BEYOND WHAT YOU SEE
Let all that I am praise the Lord; may I never forget the good things He does for me. (Psalm 103:2)
He forgives my sins. There is a lot more in that than we can see. There are always things beyond what we see. If we learn to look for them and look at them when we see them, we will never stop being amazed.
Psalm 121 starts by saying, “I look up to the mountains—does my help come from there?” As I thought about looking up, I realized that we can see the furthest when we look up. We can see mountains from quite a distance, but when we look up, we can see a lot further. And when we look up to God we can really see that there is much beyond what we can see.
Jesus told Nathaniel that He saw him before Phillip found him. This alone convinced Nathaniel that Jesus was the Son of God. We all need to look beyond what we can see, so that we can see Jesus as He is.
He is Lord, but beyond that, is He, our Lord? Is He your Lord? Everyone wants His forgiveness once they realize they need His forgiveness. There is just so much more beyond what we see. He is greater than we know, and He is always beyond what we see or totally understand. That is why we are challenged to keep pressing on.
Jesus looked beyond our faults and provided what we needed. He was not focused on our sins when He died for us, and He is not focused on them now. He sees beyond and He continues to sow seeds in our lives that will produce the harvest that He sees for us and for all people everywhere.
I think we are all probably guilty of judging before we see the whole picture. Recently, someone stopped by that has stopped by many times; always when they need something. Sadly, my attitude was based on the past! Icing on the cake was that I was interrupted during early morning time with the Lord, so that added a bit to my short growl session.
Funnier yet, was that in my prayer time I had just asked the Lord to keep me compassionate and generous. So off I went with a not again attitude. It was just as I thought, another in a long list of stories. To be honest, I had planned to simply say no this time! But then I said we will get you to the next place on your list. I said it kindly. Kinder than my inside attitude remained.
As I went to arrange for gas, the Lord said they would need to eat. I chuckle as I remember how busted I was. I ran and got some cash and with a much better attitude offered the money for the food. It was only after they left that God reminded me what prayed. He showed me that I need to look beyond what I can see and that the prayer I prayed was not limited to my selection process. We need to be willing to look beyond what we see because we know there is more, and God sees all! Read Psalm 103 today and see all that we have to praise God for.