Seeing God in Everything

 “The fullness of Joy is to behold God in everything”. - Julian of Norwich

Let those words sink in - the fullness of joy is to behold God in everything. What would it look like to see God in everything. 

In order to see God in everything, we need to first see God in EVERYONE. 

Do you see God in your immigrant neighbor, your gay neighbor, your migrant neighbor, your neighbor who doesn’t look like you?

Jesus tells a story in Luke 10 about a Jewish man beaten on the side of the road and the two religious elites (who are both Jewish) that pass by, do nothing. It is the man who is Samaritan (a people group despised by the Jews of the First Century) who helps the man beaten and left for dead. Jesus uses this story to say that if your faith causes you to hate people, you’re doing it wrong. 

Over the last couple years, a leader I have gotten to know in real life and has been really encouraged by her writing is pastor and author Sharon Hodde Miller. Her book, The Cost of Control, came out at a critical time for me in 2022 when my faith was evolving into something beautiful again and I was reimagining a way forward in my work life that was more balanced and healthy. She says:

“When it is not good enough to BE good, and we want people to also THINK we are good, then we are likely to protect our reputations in destructive ways. Why is our culture chronically anxious? One major factor is our relationship with control.”

So how do we escape swimming in the fishbowl of “behind” and let ourselves go wild in open waters?

We have to break up, junior high style, with control. 

We cannot continue to pretend that we are in control and then when we crash and burn and are laying in a heap, exhausted and bloody, and then blame someone else. 

The call is coming from inside the house. We have to take care of ourselves better

If we are going to swim in the waters of not caring about who is winning or losing, who is ahead or behind, who is living their best life or who isn’t - we have to practice. 

When Michael Phelps, winner of 82 medals, was at the height of his career, he trained six days a week and had one rest day. His swims averaged 13 kilometers (8 miles) a day and at least 80,000 meters (49 miles) every week. 

What practices work best for you to care for yourself?

Who do you need to spend time with that will remind you that your value does not come from who you please or what you produce?

Be gentle with yourself beloved

You have nothing to prove

Be still and know that I am God

Be still and know

Be still

Be

Grace and Peace

Matt Nash