Lately God has been bringing me back to the idea that he is ever present and ever constant. If you’re “lucky” in life you find that one person who is your constant, your rock, your calm when everything around you is chaotic. How comforting is it to know that you have that one person you can come back to no matter what? You feel like you can face the worst of circumstances when you know you have that “person” to come back to at the end of the day. I would call myself blessed to have found that in the person of my husband. He is my “person”, my safe place, yet this blog post isn’t about him.
Immeasurably more than the blessing I have in my husband, I consider myself to be infinitely blessed to have a relationship with the God of the universe. I could have my relationship with God and have no earthly possessions and lose everyone that I love and still be infinitely blessed. How is that possible? Why would I say that?
You see, as much as Bryan is my constant, my safe place, God is that times a hundred million billion.
Recently, I was in church during the music time and God kept bringing the phrase “due north” to my mind. This is where God really brought the idea of His constancy home to me. It made me think about why am I a Christian? And what’s so special about all this God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit stuff. Why does it matter that I’m a Christian? Not that I just believe in God but, why does it matter that I have placed my faith in Jesus Christ and claim to be a follower of Him?
It’s more than just believing in some distant far off God who we ask for things occasionally and hope that we will have done enough good things to please him. Or that we have done few enough bad things to keep him from getting mad. It’s about believing in a God who is not only “due north” but is the internal compass who constantly points you back to that due north “coordinate” that keeps you headed in the right direction.
God himself is “due north”. He is the Constant, the Rock, the Ultimate Calm when everything around me is chaotic and falling apart, yet He also puts the Holy Spirit within me to constantly point me back to the due north position. God has been around since the beginning of time. He created everything we can see and can’t see. He sacrificed His only son so we could be with him and He never changes, never fails, never makes mistakes, never stops loving us and is always with us.
Just ponder that for a minute. He never changes, never fails, and is always with us. If I consider myself to be blessed by having a husband who is my constant, my safe place, then how much more am I blessed to have the God of the universe call me his child and makes his home in my heart? How much comfort and calm and joy should that bring to my life?
Even further, being a child of God and having him make his home in my heart not only means that I can put my faith and hope in the one who controls the moon and the sun and the stars and everything on earth for this life, but he also controls eternity and says that if I put my faith and trust in him, I will get to be with him after I die, for eternity.
That’s why it matters. When you know the God of the universe and you know that no matter what He will never not be God then that changes everything! It’s that doesn’t necessarily always mean it’s easy, it’s not that bad things won’t happen but when you compare it to the unfailingness or who God is, the bad stuff pails in comparison. You always know, no matter where you are or no matter where you go “due north” is always there and, if you allow Him to, He will always point you back towards that cardinal position.
The hymn “Turn your eyes upon Jesus” (see below) puts it so much more poignantly than I can. I hope this post reminds you of what you have when you put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ.
O soul are you weary and troubled?
No light in the darkness you see?
There’s light for a look at the Savior,
And life more abundant and free:
Turn you eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face;
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim
In the light of His glory and grace.
Through death into life everlasting
He passed, and we follow Him there;
Over us sin no more hath dominion
For more than conquerors we are!
Turn you eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face;
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim
In the light of His glory and grace.
Ephesians 3:14-20
For this reason I bow my knees before the Father,… that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.