For your unfailing love is higher than the heavens.
Your faithfulness reaches to the clouds.
Be exalted, O God, above the highest heavens.
May your glory shine over all the earth. – Psalm 108:4-5
Praise the Lord!
I will thank the Lord with all my heart as I meet with his godly people.
How amazing are the deeds of the Lord!
All who delight in him should ponder them.
Everything he does reveals his glory and majesty.
His righteousness never fails.
He causes us to remember his wonderful works.
How gracious and merciful is our Lord! – Psalm 111:1-4
I love spending time with my brothers and sisters in Christ. I love listening to their God-stories and sharing mine. As I spend time with believers, I am blessed by the many ways God has loved them – how gracious and merciful He has been to them. Some of the stories are marked by heartache and some by healing; some by pain and some by joy. God knows what we need and He knows we need to hear His stories, confirming that He is still at work in the lives of His people. God’s story doesn’t end on the last page of the Bible. It has continued from generation to generation in the lives of His children.
This week our family has been at the quadrennial General Assembly of the Church of the Nazarene in Indianapolis. I have seen childhood friends, college friends and friends from all over the nation. I was blessed to get a hug from my friend who is serving the Lord in Hungary and hear her God-stories. I was blessed to enjoy ice cream with a friend from Texas and hear what God recently did in her family’s life through a missions trip to Belize. I listened to the stories of my college roommate and shared in the joy of where God has them right now. I made new friends, only to find out we have mutual friends. I saw friends with recent job changes, friends with new babies, friends with recent struggles.
Stories – they are all around us. I watched the choir made up of children from around the world and wondered what their stories were. I walked down the hall behind the delegation from Africa and listened to them sing “How Great Thou Art” in a language I did not know, but FULLY understood. Their stories are probably far different from mine, but our hearts understood and agreed together on this message:
Oh Lord, my God, when I in awesome wonder,
consider all the worlds Thy hands have made.
I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder,
Thy power throughout the universe displayed.
Then sings my soul, my Savior God to Thee.
How great Thou art, how great Thou art.
Then sings my soul, my Savior God to Thee.
How great Thou art, how great Thou art.
When through the woods and forest glades I wander,
And hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees.
When I look down, from lofty mountain grandeur
And see the brook, and feel the gentle breeze.
Then sings my soul, my Savior God to Thee.
How great Thou art, how great Thou art.
Then sings my soul, my Savior God to Thee.
How great Thou art, how great Thou art.
And when I think of God His Son not sparing,
Sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in.
That on the cross, my burden gladly bearing.
He bled and died to take away my sin.
When Christ shall come, with shout of acclamation,
and take me home, what joy shall fill my heart.
Then I shall bow in humble adoration, and there proclaim:
“My God, how great Thou art!”
Then sings my soul, my Savior God to Thee.
How great Thou art, how great Thou art.
Then sings my soul, my Savior God to Thee.
How great Thou art, how great Thou art.