 Last Sunday, I decided to eat cereal for breakfast. I dumped a pile of Fruity Pebbles into a bowl and reached for the milk. That’s when things got messy. You see, the pile of Fruity Pebbles in my bowl was rather large and stiff. So when I poured milk into the bowl, the milk bounced off of the Fruity Pebbles and landed on me!
“Darn it! My pants and shoes are milky now.” That was my first thought. Then, I had a second thought: “This is how we are with God sometimes. We’re too hard to receive His blessing. So when He pours Himself out to us, it goes right back to Him.”  “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them” (Gen. 1:27 KJV).
God is a trinity — the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Because we’re made in the image of God, we’re also triune beings. “Now may the God of peace make you holy in every way, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ comes again” (1 Thess. 5:23 NLT).  I’m obsessed with words. Because of this, I recognize strange correlations. For example, there’s an interesting relationship between the words “here” and “hear.” You see, in order to truly comprehend what someone has to say, you must be present.
In order to hear, you must be here. The same is often true when it comes to God. If you want to hear from God, you should probably be close to Him. “Come close to God, and God will come close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners; purify your hearts, for your loyalty is divided between God and the world” (James 4:8 NLT).  The disciples found themselves in a boat with Jesus. All of a sudden, there was a windstorm. The boat filled with water. The disciples freaked out. In the meantime, Jesus rested His head on a pillow—yes, dozing in the stern.
“And they awoke Him and said to Him, ‘Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?’ Then He arose and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, ‘Peace, be still!’ And the wind ceased and there was a great calm” (Mark 4:38-39 NKJV). |