God of Wonders

Oh, how my soul so often longs to rest in something. 

I ache to cease from all my striving, from all the things that keep me trying to prove myself in the world. I long to stop trying to earn the things I have, to earn more than I have, to keep myself afloat. I want to be done thinking that I haven't done enough, that I'm not enough as I am, that there has to be more to me if there is ever to be more to me than this life. I want to get off this hamster wheel. 

But it's hard. It's hard because we work so hard for the lives that we live that it starts to creep into our faith, as well, until we're laboring not even to earn, but to keep, the eternity that God has promised us. As if, were we to stop for even a moment working so hard, that would be the moment that we would die, and it would all be for nothing. We keep a secret score in our head that tells us that yes, today, I still have salvation.

We know that God has given us salvation and that it is His free gift to us through grace. We know that it is finished, as Jesus Himself said before drawing what seemed to be His last breath. We know that it's not over, as we learned when He walked out of the tomb and spoke to us once more. And yet, something in us still needs the assurances. 

Something in us still needs to be able to look around and see it - it's real. It has to be real

It is real, and the author of Hebrews says we can see it all around us. God is proving salvation to us all the time "through wonders, great signs, miracles, and spiritual gifts" (2:3-4). 

He's proving it through wonders because how else does a tiny seed fall into the earth and die, only to become a great tree? How does a weed grow in the smallest crack of the sidewalk? How does a caterpillar grow wings and take flight? The wonders all around us remind us that God brings dead things to life in the most wild and unimaginable places. And He's doing the same with us. 

He's proving it through great signs because how else do the skies over our lives know whether to be red in the morning or the night? We look at the heavens and we sense what kind of day we are going to have, and we can see in them, too, the promise of eternity if we're looking close enough because God has painted the promise over all things. These are His great signs for us. 

He's proving it to us through miracles because how else does the lame man walk again? How do the blind see? How does the woman on the ventilator come off of it? How do the cancer cells vanish? How does the bank account keep having just enough in it when we just spent our last "just enough" last week? How does the traffic light switch just before a big rig comes barreling through it in the wrong direction, keeping us inches from disaster? Our lives are full of a little miracles, and they remind us that God has His eye on us.

He's proving it through spiritual gifts, through the little things He's wired us to do for Him and for one another that bring heaven to earth. That remind us that we are made for more than this. That give us that sense of something bigger than ourselves, something real. Something tangible. Something that we are an integral part of. And if He's made us an integral part of it here, how could we ever believe He hasn't made us to be part of it forever? Our salvation is sure because our God has made us part of His plan. 

Everywhere we turn, we see reminders of what the Lord has done. He's put these reminders all around us so that we can know it's not us who has to work for it; He's already done it. Our job is simply to let it all wash over us and rest in the promise. 

And isn't that what we want to do - deep in our souls - anyway?