The burnt orange splendor of autumn has taken hold of the green of the leaves in our backyard. They’re all ablaze, wind ripping through, clapping their hands, thunderously applauding the God of heaven. It looks like a fire that doesn’t consume….maybe He still burns bushes? Just not in the very same way. Maybe all the ground we walk on is holy, because now we know He is everywhere all of the time? To my soul’s very great relief. Yours too?

Maybe He still calls His people to turn aside and listen, to behold the glory of Who He is, to feast on His Word?

Oh, to believe Him the first time we hear! To answer a little more like Abraham when he left Ur and a little less like Moses when God calls him back to Egypt as deliverer, to answer with full faith the first time, I want that! To grow in faith as Abraham and Moses surely did and not shrink back.

Without faith it is impossible to please God.

Hebrews 11:6

And faith is a byproduct of all consuming grace. I am relieved again. I can breathe, because this day is full of mounting grace….grace upon grace.

For of His fullness we have all received grace upon grace.

John 1:16

The thought occurs to me that even this mustard seed of faith I am holding is grace. Nothing cupped in my heart or hand originated with me. Losing control feels like freedom when we fall in the midst of Truth. I squeeze the day less tightly. Stop trying to make everyone and everything do what I want them to. I renounce myself as god and enthrone the Lord in my heart and with the praises of my lips and with the thoughts of my mind. Sweet relief is He.

How glad my soul is when the Lord sits in my heart as He does over the whole world, enthroned. Let us turn aside, behold His glory, and believe….