Pointing to God

This is a photo I took last week in Block Island. It was completely unplanned. I could see through the camera that my uncle was pointing up at something, and I didn't know what, but I snapped a photo anyway. It turns out he was pointing to a rainbow. It had been raining all day but the sun came out just in time to amaze us with this gorgeous sunset, and left a rainbow on the other side of the sky.
     When I look back on this picture, I feel like he is pointing up to God. That's just what it looks like to me.
   Today I was thinking about how everything we do can bring glory to God. How that is our purpose in life. I was picking edamame beans at the farm. It wasn't hard work, but it wasn't really much fun either, and it was pretty slow to fill up two pints all by myself in the hot sun. But it occurred to me that I could pick those beans for the glory of God. I know that sounds kind of crazy. But in reality, every one of our actions has been given to us by the grace of God. So, whether we're doing dishes, math homework, folding laundry (a few of my least favorite things) or singing in church, painting or spackling a wall while on a mission trip (haha), scooping ice cream at work, or spending time reading the bible, we can be bringing glory to God. We can choose to glorify Him in all of those things... or not to.
   But today I realized that I want my whole life, and everything I do to point to God. I want that to be the purpose of my life. Tonight, I was blessed to have one of those times where you just pour everything out in prayer. I was driving home from bible study, listening to music on my dysfunctional cd player, when all the sudden I just turned it off. I love listening to music when I drive, but suddenly I just knew I needed to pray and that the music was in my way. I prayed all the way home, honest, genuine prayer. I had this crazy moment where I was like, "This is it. This is life." I felt pure joy at the fact that I know Christ and can come to him like this. That no matter what happens, I have this. God has me and is not going to let go.
   Ever since I came back from Philly, and even before that, I've been wrestling with my faith and what it means to live my life for Christ. To live my life changed by what He has done. I've struggled with my sin way more this summer than before, and struggled with patience in God's timing and with Him not always giving me what I want. It's been crazy and complicated. But I have grown. And tonight, I just prayed with such authenticity that I would just know Him more. I pray a lot that I would want that, without really truly in my bones wanting it, but tonight I did. I felt God there as I drove home in the dark & silence, felt that following Jesus and serving him was what I wanted in life, and I know that is my purpose in life. To always be pointing to him. I thought again of this picture.
   I just had to write this all down. I'm not always gonna feel this passionate about what I believe, not always going to be this close to God. But I am growing in my desire to know him, and it is amazing to see how he brings that about in me, because I never could find that desire on my own. I hope though, that I will always be moving forward in my faith. That even through the struggling & the mess like I've known this summer, I will know that he is there and that he is all powerful and that he is still the desire of my heart. I honestly always hope my life is about holding my hands upward and bringing glory to the Lord.

We Delight To Praise

I've been reading through some stuff that C.S. Lewis wrote, and it's amazing. It's so insightful. I love reading something that I feel but never could have put into words myself. This is a quote (kind of long) that really strikes me as amazing. It's something I've been thinking about lately. It can be kind of hard to understand the language at some points, but this passage is so worth it to sit and think through. (I put my favorite parts in italics!)

"It is frustrating to have discovered a new author and not to be able to tell anyone how good he is; to come suddenly, at the turn of the road, upon some mountain valley of unexpected grandeur and then to have to keep silent because the people with you care for it no more than for a tin can in a ditch; to hear a good joke and find no one to share it with (the perfect hearer died a year ago). This is so even when our expressions are inadequate, as of course they usually are.
     But how if one could really and fully praise even such things to perfection- utterly 'get out' in poetry or music or paint the upsurge of appreciation which almost bursts you? Then indeed the object would be fully appreciated and our delight would have attained perfect development. The worthier the object, the more intense this delight would be. If it were possible for a created soul fully (I mean, up to the full measure conceivable in a finite being) to 'appreciate,' that is to love and delight in, the worthiest object of all, and simultaneously at every moment to give this delight perfect expression, then that soul would be in supreme beatitude.
    It is along these lines that I find it easiest to understand that the Christian doctrine that 'Heaven' is a state in which angels now, and men hereafter, are perpetually employed in praising God. This does not mean, as is can so dismally suggest, that it is like 'being in church.' For our 'services' both in their conduct and in our power to participate, are merely attempts at worship; never fully successful, often 99.9 percent failures, sometimes total failures.
     To see what the doctrine really means, we must suppose ourselves to be in perfect love with God- drunk with, drowned in, dissolved by, that delight which, far from remaining pent up within ourselves as incommunicable, hence hardly tolerable, bliss, flows out from us incessantly again in effortless and perfect expression, our joy no more separable from the praise in which it liberates and utters itself than the brightness a mirror receives is separable from the brightness it sheds. The Scotch catechism says that man's chief end is 'to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.' But we shall then know that these are the same thing. Fully to enjoy is to glorify. In commanding us to glorify Him, God is inviting us to enjoy Him."


Woah. Isn't that great? Just think about it.

moments

the summer has been so beautiful. sometimes it goes by so fast. sometimes the things you want to remember are just moments. here are some from the summer so far. but there are so many more waiting to happen.

                                        

                                                         caroline and her new friend.

a butterfly. iridescent & weightless, brought to its end by getting caught in our screened in porch. now it's just a treasure, taped to a notebook.

feet at the farm. feet that have just been swimming in the pond, havent seen shoes all day, and feet that are free.

                                                   on the way to volleyball at the farm.

              ben at the farm. it was cloudy all day, but then the sun came and lit things up, left a glow.