Rainy days and Coffee

Stop and think of the ways God loves on you.

Not how He loves you, but how He loves ON you.

How He created you to feel and receive His love.

How He made you to respond to His love.

A few minutes ago, I was driving down a small street painted red with leaves that had fallen from the trees on each side. The rain was perfecting that patter on my windshield that I have always found so comforting since my childhood. And then- just the right song began to play in my car. I reached down to turn up the volume in anticipation of Regina's voice cracking with passion as she erupted in the next few words of the song, and I was overwhelmed by a presence of the Lord's love being poured over me.

This made me stop and think- why do I feel connected to the Lord so much in this moment? I'm not reading scripture, praying, or listening to worship music. I really wasn't even thinking about him, but rather about how hungry I was and what I was planning to do this afternoon. But in the presence of that moment, a moment that deeply touched who I am, I felt the Lord actively loving on me.

Romans 11:36 in the NLT says, "For everything comes from him and exists by his power and is intended for his glory." Everything. The rain. The leaves. The music. The color. I began to reflect on how the Lord has created passions and desires in our hearts to respond to things in the ways we do. When the woman sings the opera at the end of Damien Rice's Eskimo, everything I'm thinking or feeling stills for a moment. The Lord created that response in me. Sometimes when I see a painting, I immediately get trapped into pondering the artist's intent and vision. That response is of the Lord. And it is an act of worship for me to enjoy and respond to such things. It's how he loves on me. Everything comes from him and exists for his power and is intended for his glory. He wants for us to find joy in the things he created us to love. And he wants us to recognize that it's all from him. For HIS glory.

So as I sit here in this coffee shop on a rainy day, looking at the window, drinking my coffee, I know the Lord is being glorified through the delight my heart is resting in today. If you don't have peace and delight, He can be glorified in your fears and your doubts. Just give it to Him. Let him carry you. Give him whatever you have today. And give him Glory.

So if we're sticking with the simplicity of a child-like faith, this is it:

As a Christian, bring glory to the Lord with everything and anything you have to offer.

Be inspired.