Illustrating the Majesty of God in Our Lives

The following wonderfully encouraging words are from a topic shared by John Coblentz at a 2012 Writers and Artists' Conference and recorded in Christian Light Publications' July-August 2012 newsletter:

"God is majestic.  We see pictures of His majesty all around us each day.  Starlit summer skies and flowery meadows testify of God's majesty and glory.  But God also shows reflections of His majesty in a more personal way, through our lives.

"How does this happen?  How can we illustrate God's majesty in our lives?

"If we were to try to show others the 'glory' of what we can do, the highest and greatest achievements, we would look for the best materials and the most ideal conditions.  In contrast, God gives us some of the most profound illustrations of His majesty through the messiness of human experience.  God uses human weakness to illustrate His glory.

"Paul says God actually chooses the weak, the despised, the lowly, and the people who are not anything in themselves to do the things that bring glory to His name.

"'But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; and base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to naught things that are.' -- 1 CORINTHIANS 1:27, 28

"If we want to show the majesty of God in our lives, then we must be careful how we aspire to do that.  God has chosen the foolish instead of the wise, the weak in contrast to the powerful, and the despised in place of the honored.  He has chosen the 'base' (meaning the people without family and without any recognition by virtue of lineage) to bring glory to Himself.  In our vernacular we could say He has chosen the street urchins and the nobodies.

"Through the Biblical record, God has a pattern of taking those people we would tend to look down on and using them for His purposes.

"Rahab was a prostitute.  She belonged to a group of people who were so corrupt that God said they should be obliterated.  Rahab was without lineage; she was a nobody.  But when Israeli spies showed up at her door, she said, 'The Lord your God, He is God in Heaven above, and in earth beneath.'  That's quite a statement of faith from a woman whose morals make us wonder how God could do anything good through her.

"And yet, we see God at work in this woman's heart.  We see Him showing His majesty through her life.  Her son, Boaz, became a man of character who married Ruth, and from that lineage, Jesus was born.

"I take courage when I see God's majesty illustrated in a life like Rahab's.  If God can use a woman like this, perhaps He can use us as well!

"God uses weakness to confound the world.  The Apostle Paul was an educated man, but God gave him a weakness.  It was painful and Paul begged the Lord for relief.  When God taught him the glorious truth that His glory is made known through weakness, Paul said, 'Okay, bring it on!  I will glory in my weakness.'

"I am not as spiritual as Paul was.  I find myself saying, 'Lord, please don't bring any more pain.  I don't enjoy this.'

"So then, should we attempt to be foolish, to be despised, or to be weak?  Should we avoid training and sharpening our skills?  Absolutely not!  We certainly want to give God the best we can offer.  Although we recognize that even our best is inadequate for illustrating the majesty of God, His glory is worthy of our best efforts, of the best human expressions we can offer to Him.

"Yet many times God will use us when we are weak.  We must accept those times when He touches our hip and shows us our weakness.

"A. W. Tozer said, 'God never uses a person greatly until He wounds him deeply.'  This is part of God's arrangement; it's the way He works. 

"Annie Johnson Flint was an orphan who lived in a number of homes growing up.  As an adult, she began writing poetry when arthritis made her unable to teach school anymore.

"People wondered how she could even write, as crippled as she was.  For forty years she lived in constant pain, eventually dictating her poetry.

"Annie believed God had laid her aside for a purpose and she put her very best into the writing of her poetry.

"Annie's verses have had an unusually deep appeal to human hearts.  Why?  She wrote out of the crucible of suffering, and she was able to minister comfort to others out of the comfort she had received from God.

"A number of years ago my wife and I took a short getaway with our family.  We were involved in heavy ministry and hardly knew how to carry some of it.  A pastor and his daughter sang a song that deeply moved us--'He Giveth More Grace.'  I didn't know it at the time, but it was written by Annie Johnson Flint.

"God intends that every life be stamped with His majesty.  We don't necessarily need to know how God will illustrate His majesty in our lives.  In fact, when we are in the middle of being used by God, often it will not seem that way.  The middle of the story looks messy; it may even look wrong.  But God is able to use things that are wrong to bring about things that are right.  God can even turn what people do against Him into the very means by which He accomplishes His intentions.

"It is difficult for us to see anything majestic in much of what happens in human experience.  But when we trust God and allow Him to work His intentions, the pictures at the end of the story make sense.  They are beautiful.

"I don't know where you are in your particular story, whether you are in a time of confusion or of faith.  My encouragement to you is to trust God.  He is a majestic God and He will make all things right.  'This is my Father's world,/ And though the wrong seems oft so strong,/ God is the Ruler yet.'"