Our Need for Extravagance and Miracles
"Is not incivility the very essence of love?"
- Melissa Larson's Pride and Prejudice play
As I continue to learn about God and am continually romanced by His creation, the theme of His abundant and lavish character has been impressed upon my heart.
My fearful mind and heart have difficulty believing in and stepping into the fullness of joy and unbridled power that the Spirit freely offers me.
Whether it's my training, my nature, or my personality, I've been operating under the premise of:
I can only expect God to meet my needs--and that's just a maybe--and anything superfluous and extravagant is a rare blessing and totally uneccessary.
I've commonly seen this premise acted out within the lives of many Christian adults as I've grown up: rejecting extravagance and abundance and declaring drab and minimalistic as more holy.
Whether it's little to no makeup
Subtle jewelry
A "quaint" home
Small/liturgical prayers
Quiet footsteps as not to dirty the ground with their sin
Or being surprised when they see someone living joyfully
I'll never forget when a teacher in high school asked why I was so happy on the daily.
"Does joy on earth surprise you, sir?"
Apparently.
God has been challenging these labels of minimalistic, efficient, and sparse that I have put on Him and His attitude towards me and urging me to replace them with lavish, extravagant, and abundant.
Maybe even more astounding than the sheer knowledge of Him as larger than life and willing to share that are the exciting implications we get to experience.
Ephesians 3:20, "Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen."
Take a closer look at the language Paul uses to describe how God wants to interact with us and respond to our prayers:
Exceedingly Abundantly Above All
I can just see Paul pulling his hair by its roots as he searches for the right words to convey the awesomeness of God's generosity towards us. So he just keeps writing to form a sentence that looks a little ridiculous in English.
What does this mean for us?
That we can have faith as big as our hopes and watch God deliver.
Whether our prayers be for complete healings or energy to keep studying, God's favorite thing to do is bless His children because it helps us love Him.
I can pray for a car for the summer and come home for Thanksgiving break and see a fourth car in my parent's driveway because God is abundant.
I can pray for a shooting star and watch one beautifully grace the sky because God is playful and lavish.
I can pray for revival in a family and watch the one Christian share the Gospel within the family an hour later because God wants to use us.
I can pray for something to do this summer and have a magazine internship basically handed to me because God is intimately involved in my life and cares that I have the best.
If I crave God I therefore must crave abundance because that is who He is.
Philippians 4:19, "And my God shall supply all your needs according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus."
Notice how this verse doesn't say, "And my God shall supply all your needs according to His skills in simplicity and minimalistic distribution."
No.
Riches in Glory
Let's calmly and completely extinguish this idea that God merely drizzles His power on His people.
He is living inside of us.
No drizzling.
Infusing. Surging. Plentiful. Bubbling. Alive. Intimate. Powerful. Complete. Engulfing. Surrounding. Total. Encompassing. Deep. Connected. Accessible. Available.
Rich and Glorious is the one within us.
For Jesus to tell His disciples that faith the size of a mustard seed could move mountains makes much more sense if we see our God to be just as bursting, fruitful, and capable as that little seed and far beyond.
Mustard seeds are the beginning of some of the most beautiful trees in the world (in my opinion...)
The amazing life-changing and heart-romancing possibilities when our faith mixes with the same God who makes a pinhead a shade tree are completely designed for our joy and His joy and glorification.
So, when you're anxious, you have a need that can be met by God's glorious riches. Ask Him to cradle your heart and to feel the heat as He does it. He wants you to feel Him.
When you're too busy, cry out for strength and watch as one of your classes is randomly canceled. Or is it so random?
When you want the seemingly impossible...that GPA, that boyfriend, that healing, that peace...pray expectantly to our abundant God.
I'll spare you the entire text of Matthew 6:25-34. It's where Jesus calls us more valuable than sparrows so we shouldn't worry about our necessities.
But I want to draw attention to two important passages from these verses:
v.25b, "Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?"
v.28-30, "And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all of his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field which is here today and tomorrow is thrown in the fire, will He not much more clothe you?"
What I want to explore from these verses:
Could it be that God created humans with a need for abundance that He loves to fill?
Could it be that instead of a straight command to trust God that the actual remedy for worry is seeing God as abundant in His care for us?
We must know what kind of God we are trusting in order for that trust to be full: we must trust a lavish Lord.
He sraight up tells us that the life He has for us is quite a bit more than the bare necessities. More than clothes, better than the gorgeous lilies of the field.
______________________
We've seen that God is infinitely willing and able to bless us beyond all we can ask or imagine according to His glorious riches and that He urges us to trust the kind of God who intricately designs each day's worth of beautiful lilies...
Is it too far of a leap to say--in light of our intimately abundant King--that modern day miracles still happen?
I've talked to three dear and trusted friends who literally witness healings, tongues, and prophecies weekly and on Thursday I'm headed to immerse myself amongst these people who believe in the Spirit's power that much and see God work for myself.
~and now I've officially crossed over into crazy, uninformed Christian land...~
But I challenge us all in saying that we can't help but accept these things if we accept God's abundant presence on earth.
Growing up, what I've learned about miracles, healings, and hearing God's voice is that that's how God interacted with His people then and that we don't need it now. All of those signs--tongues and prophecies--were to establish Jesus as the Messiah and are no longer necessary.
No longer necessary.
That doesn't sound abundant.
And the Bible says absolutely nothing about these kinds of gifts ceasing.
If I can appeal to human emotion for a moment: who doesn't want to experience or witness a miracle? To see God's full fledged intervention on earth so tangibly?
This isn't a bad or misplaced desire. We were made for this.
God wants to be with us and to show off. He wants to heal the broken. Literally. He wants to give signs for our faith to grow. He wants to amaze us so we fall more in love with Him.
He is a scandalous lover. The teenage boy throwing rocks at her window ready with his guitar and flowers, the man holding his wrecked wife who has just confessed unfaithfulness, the young "fool" who chooses a college soley to be with his love, the wisened old husband who remembers the song that played on their first date and dances with his wife even if it comes on in public...
Why do we hesitate to believe that God heals people today? Or that miracles still happen?
1 Corithians 12:10-11, "to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues. All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he distributes them to each one, just as he determines."
1 Corinthians 12:27-31, "Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. And God has placed in the church first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, of helping, of guidance, and of different kinds of tongues. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret? Now eagerly desire the greater gifts."
I challenge you to read 1 Corithians 12-14 and take it as it is. I know I couldn't find anything that indicated that these miracles and gifts aren't practiced anymore.
The three most striking things to me about this passage:
1. 1 Corinthians 13, what we quote most often when speaking of love, is smack dab in the middle of the discussion of spiritual gifts. Paul says that love is the highest spiritual gift and in fact what all the other gifts are for.
2. 1 Cor. 14:1, "Pursue love, and desire spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy." Whoa...
3. 1 Cor 14:39, "Therefore, brethren, desire earnestly to prophesy, and do not forbid to speak with tongues." I know of at least one Christian organization that forbids speaking in tongues...I guess that's a sin.
Of course, with these kinds of miracles Paul makes it clear that they are for the edification of the church and the glorification and worship of God.
14:26c, "Let all things be done for edification."
14:24-25, "But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or an uninformed person comes in, he is convinced by all, he is convicted by all. And thus the secrets of his heart are revealed; and so, falling down on his face, he will worship God and report that God is truly among you."
I've only given a few juicy verses on this fascinating topic. So please. Prayerfully read what The Word has to say about it all for yourself.
I wrestled with God so much about these miracles and seemingly "weird" happenings.
A friend told me amidst this struggle: "Isn't it just like the devil to create the 'fringy' stigma around people who actually take full power of the Spirit? He knows the Spirit is dangerous. He doesn't want more people taking advantage of it."
Valid.
But if you're not ready to accept and believe this radical manifestation of God's power on earth, continue to worship God for every other full and completely abundant gift He has given us.
Today I listened to a talk by Joe Rigney titled Live Like a Narnian: Christian Discipleship in C.S. Lewis's Chronicles.
It's a great a powerful picture of the joy that's available to us on earth because of God's character. He even goes so far as to say rejecting joy is sinful. If that's challenging or intriguing, give it a listen.
If not, my prayer for us all is that we will learn to embrace our innate need for abundance, and to open our hearts even wider--and maybe even give some room for a miracle or two--to receive until we are overflowing.