In the past few weeks, I’ve learned more about giving praise to God than I ever thought possible. And it’s a painful and a beautiful thing, and I’m not going to get too in depth here. But God has stretched me and taught me more than I ever thought I could be capable of… though I guess that’s the point? That I’m not capable of it.
Regardless, tonight I’m reflecting on how good God is for my pride. As in, he’s been pretty incredible at breaking it apart and tearing it down since I started praying about it in high school. And at first, it was only in small pieces; I’d spent quite a long time building it up and shaping it. I wasn’t willing to let go of more than the littlest chunks.
But lately… in the past 6 months or so… it’s been coming down in waves. I could write a book about the lessons I’ve learned – painful ones – but I’m just beginning to really reflect on it, so I couldn’t put it all into words here. And of course I didn’t get it while it was happening; I’m much too stubborn and shortsighted for that. But looking back, I can see a little glimpse of how everything relates. And I can get small glances at the much more beautiful product that God is shaping in me than I was ever capable of creating myself.
So that’s all back story; what I really want to talk about is how I’ve watched one scene from the Prince of Egypt roughly 30 times today. The scene with the “Look at your life through Heaven’s Eyes” song. Mainly because they summed up in five minutes what has taken me 20+ years to learn. And I feel ridiculous, because I have watched this movie multiple times, and I never really ‘got it’ until now. And I feel ridiculous for being so moved from a cartoon that I’ve thought about it for hours, even while I was at meetings and such, and am still watching it and gaining more from the lyrics of the song and the images.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oG0a9WFkgzU&feature=related
That is what I mean by God being good for my pride. Even in the littlest things, He’s constantly reminding me that I don’t have a clue, and when He does reveal things to me, it’s in the most basic of concepts and from the most unlikely sources – there is no chance of me turning it into bragging about how incredibly insightful and intellectual I am. And in that way, God is protecting me from my sinful tendencies. It blows my mind how perfect He is.
Okay, I’ve taken a long time to get to my original point… the whole idea of the song. Until very recently, I have spent my entire life trying to figure out why things happen and what God wanted in my life. The problem is that I was trusting in myself to discern that, and how can ‘a single thread’ see ‘the pattern of the grand design’? I can’t! Why even try? I would even say things intellectually about how we can never see things from God’s perspective, because we’re not capable of understanding it, but I didn’t really grasp the concept or apply it. And the things that I thought had value? Not important. It’s not important to be viewed as capable or intelligent or creative.
“So how can you see what your life is worth? Or where your value lies? You can never see through the eyes of man – you must look at your life through heaven’s eyes.”
And I’ve spent much of my life up to this point looking for answers. Praying for God to explain to me why each thing happens. And when He didn’t answer, I would decide why things were happening and project that onto Him. But God isn’t going to explain to me every detail of my life! That’s not the point.
“And though you never know all the steps, you must learn to join the dance.”
The whole point of faith is to trust and follow without knowing how it all turns out. Which is the most basic of concepts, but one that I’ve never really understood fully. And it’s all just a reminder. Of how I need to live my life, and what I’m striving for.
“So how do you judge what a man is worth? By what he builds or buys? You can never see through your eyes on earth. Look through heaven’s eyes.”
God is so freaking awesome!
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