Topics: Abundant Life; Calling; Conversion; Destiny; God; Growth; Illumination; Meaning of Life; Mysteries; New Life; Potential; Promises; Purpose; Revelation; Riches
References: Genesis 21:1–7; Acts 9:1–19; Ephesians 3
On my desk I like to display, on a bookstand, the kind of gift books you put on the coffee table—those filled with professional photos of nature or tourist destinations. My current book is America’s Spectacular National Parks by Michael Duchemin. For several days I have had the book open to a photo of the Grand Teton Mountains, an extra-wide photo that fills the left page and crosses the fold to take up half of the right. It is a majestic display of deep blue sky; rugged, gray, snow-capped mountains; and a calm lake in the foreground.
This morning I decided to turn the page to the next photo, and as I did I discovered that I had missed something important. The right page of the Grand Tetons photo was an extra-long page folded over, covering part of the Grand Tetons. So when I opened it up, it added some sixteen inches to the width of the photo. Wow! The Grand Tetons became even grander.
The Christian life has unfolding moments like that, when we discover there is much more to God and his kingdom than we knew, much more to his purpose for us than we imagined. Abraham experienced that at age seventy-five, Moses at age eighty, the apostle Paul on the road to Damascus. Again and again in the Bible, when God met people, he opened a glorious page for them that had previously been folded.
—Craig Brian Larson, Arlington Heights, Illinois