Thursday, March 24, 2011

Spiritual Giants

I can't even describe what a whirlwind my life feels like right now... but I just had to sit and share a few things with you before the weekend begins! So let's jump right into it...

Recently I have been trying to revamp the ways I connect to God.  It is so natural for me to want to connect through worship - I love to listen to and sing worship music as much and as often as I can... it just speaks to my soul in a way that messages and books can't.  Thankfully, however, God opened my eyes to my need for His word. So, I stumbled upon this wonderful App for my phone from YouVersion where you can select different reading plans and it will help you create a Bible reading plan for each day.  Naturally, I love organization, so I hopped right on the bandwagon and have been riding down the Daily Bible Plan pathway ever since! :)

The past few days of my plan have been overwhelmed with stories of people I would call "Spiritual Giants."  You know them. The Bible is full of them. They are the ones whose names make you feel like you could take a step back in time - the ones who you ALWAYS picture with a big white beard... because you can't help but picture them as anything but really, really old men. Men like Abraham, Moses, and Elijah.  But there were two particular spiritual giants that touched my heart this past week.

The first was Noah.  My verse came from Genesis 6:9, "This is the account of Noah and his family. Noah was a righteous man, the only blameless person living on earth at the time, and he walked in close fellowship with God." Wow... what words.  Just reading that verse makes me hope that some day people will say of me "Susan, she walked in close fellowship with God."  And I have to remind myself that close fellowship with God comes from spending time with Him.  Being a woman who is a natural "doer", I so often find myself doing things for God and forgetting to just BE with God. And that was just day 5 of my 365 day devotion!

Next...we have Abram.  Genesis 15:6, "And Abram believed the LORD, and the LORD counted him as righteous because of his faith." Those last four words have resonated in my heart for the past week, "because of his faith."  You know, when it comes right down to it, our faith means A LOT to our God.

Do you ever feel like the spiritual giants of scripture are speaking into your everyday life?

If you haven't been able to relate your life to people like Gideon, Job or Esther recently, then let me challenge you to dig deep into the lives of our christian heritage.  We have a God who simply wants a relationship with us. He is a practical God was wants to relate to us in very practical ways.  The pages of the Bible are living - let them into you heart so they can change it. 

The peace I have right now can only be from God... and my prayer is that you too will feel the presence of the Lord jump off the pages of scripture and into your heart.