Stepping back to see more

Not too long ago, I was examining a painting. The skill was incredible, the brush strokes telling a tale all their own - at some points excitement, and at other points despair and despondency. There were featherlight strokes and even colouring, slightly streaking and mingling the canvas below with the various paints involved and then there were hard strokes, with uneven colours as if the artist was trying to push the paint to the other side of the canvas. 

As I was examining this piece of artwork, I had to step back and see the whole painting. I was becoming too focused on the technical side of things and was not seeing the beauty of the whole thing. I made another gaff. I stepped back too far and though I was able to see the entire painting, I was not able to see any of the details that made it so spectacular. It looked like just another picture from a distance, nothing there that seemed out of the ordinary. It became generic and stale. I moved closer and eventually through trial and error I found the right place I needed to stand to appreciate both the whole work and the skill and heart that went into this painting.

We sometimes, no, oftentimes need to do the same thing in our lives – especially in our relationship to God. We become so enamored with the details we neglect the bigger picture.  Recently I think that perhaps I have been focusing too much on the responsibilities and things we need to do during our walk with God and I have neglected a few very important things.

First off, in our walk with God, God Himself is walking with us. We take that for granted so much that we don't even see how amazing that is! God, the Creator of the Universe, is with us and wants to be closer to us at every moment of the day! How amazing is that?! The one who commands the Angels in their work, the one who speaks and the waves and winds obey him, the one who orders the planets and stars in their joyful dance wants and desires to be with you and with me!

Secondly we do not appreciate His grace as much as we should. We see only parts of it. We see some of the grace that God has in our lives, but we miss much much more of it in action. We focus on the suffering experienced in the world, but neglect that God's grace has provided for it....through us! We ask God why He allows there to be pain and suffering and merely He looks at us and asks why do we allow it? He provides encouragement for us when we are down through many avenues of our daily life, and we don't even recognize it as having God's hand involved with those details. God's grace has many, many forms that we will never recognize compared to the few forms that we are able to see clearly. Primarily we know that God's grace in our lives was that “while we were yet sinners Christ died for us” yet we do not remember that wisdom and understanding are gifts of grace as well.  We do not even normally recognize that our Lord has graced us with the gift of being able to give to Him! That is right, despite the fact that God has given us everything we have, and made us stewards of His stuff, He won't just take what He wants from us but rather asks us to give it to him freely out of our own will!  He wants our freely given adoration, He wants our hearts, minds, strengths, and souls, but He is not willing to just come in and take it, because that would render useless His gift of free-will to us. We wants our tithe too, but he won't just take it. It must be freely offered from us to Him with no strings attached.  I once heard a traveling evangelist say “There is one thing God cannot do and that is what we do not let Him do.” We can say “no” to God and He obeys (although that is a foolish thing for us to do). God's grace is so encompassing in our lives that we do not, and cannot see it all.

This week then, try and take a step back from our detail oriented lives and see where you have been focusing and what you have been missing. I'm certain that the answers and discoveries you make will surprise you. Sometimes taking a step back is a bigger blessing than we could ever think! So, in closing, remember that God is with you out of His desire too!