You'd Have to Be Blind Not To See This

Wrote this over the weekend...

We're about to get some rain at my house. Some real, serious, hopefully very soaking rain. The radar map on my weather app is lit up with greens and yellows and more than a few reds. The west side of my house is a full 5 shades darker than the east: the clouds are rolling in and blocking out the rest of the sun. Doors and windows are creaking, settling back into place against the stirring wind.
My wife asked me to go to the back yard and pick up the toys left outside, so we could keep them dry in the garage. Outside, the ambient temperature is still Lingering Summer, but you feel the swirls of air from Parts North brushing the back of your neck. The gate to the yard slams shut behind me ahead of the wind, and a piece of trash finds occasional purchase on a leaf or a blade of grass as it's sent rearward. The sky has texture, a breathing so much more present than when it's that still, high-pressure-that's-never-gonna-move blue. You'd have to be blind not to see this.

You'd have to be blind not to see this.

Jesus replied, "Every plant not planted by my heavenly Father will be uprooted,  so ignore them. They are blind guides leading the blind, and if one blind person guides another, they will both fall into a ditch." (Matthew 15:13, 14 NLT)

 When Jesus heard him, he stopped and ordered that the man be brought to him. As the man came near, Jesus asked him,  "What do you want me to do for you?"
"Lord," he said, "I want to see!" (Luke 18:40, 41 NLT)

Whatever You Ask

"If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you."

(John 15:7, 8, 16 NIV)

 

"You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you." (John 15:16 NIV)

 

There's passages all over the bible where Jesus says the Father will give us WHATEVER we ask. Really? Anything? I know too many beautiful people in terrible situations that are praying for rescue and yet to see it.

 

But I think the key is about this being to the Father's glory: I pray constantly for Him to take away the things that make me fall - the gaping holes in my spiritual walls that I know are there, yet I feel powerless to close. I think the point here is that God wants to help ME close those gaps, showing how he can transform a willing soul, rather than creating a spiritual automaton.  I know God sees the other side of our challenges when we can't, and sees His glory in there, somewhere.

 

Dear Father, give me a glimpse of the glory for You on the other side of my faults and failures, so I can be motivated to run the race laid out before me.