Smell of Dirt and Magnify the Lord [Excerpt by Ann Voskamp]
Excerpt from Selections from One Thousand Gifts: Finding Joy in What Really Matters by Ann Voskamp.
When we lay the soil of our hard lives open to the rain of grace and let joy penetrate our cracked and dry places, let joy soak into our broken skin and deep crevices, life grows. How can this not be the best thing for the world? For us? The clouds open when we mouth thanks…
Smell of dirt. Let grace and joy "penetrate our cracked and dry places."
[Consider how] Mary, with embryonic God Himself filling her womb, exalts in quiet ways: "My soul doth magnify the Lord" (Luke 1:46 KJV). So might I! Something always comes to fill the empty places. And when I give thanks for the seemingly microscopic, I make a place for God to grow within me. This, this, makes me full, and I "magnify him with thanksgiving" (Psalm 69:30 KJV).
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What will a life magnify? … All that is wholly wrong and terribly busted? Or God? |
What will a life magnify? The world's stress cracks, the grubbiness of a day, all that is wholly wrong and terribly busted? Or God? Never is God's omnipotence and omniscience diminutive. God is not in need of magnifying by us so small, but the reverse. It's our lives that are little and we have falsely inflated self, and in thanks we decrease and the world returns right. I say thanks and I swell with him, and I swell the world and He stirs me, joy all afoot.
This, I think, this is the other side of prayer.
This act of naming grace moments, this list of God's gifts, moves beyond the shopping list variety of prayer and into the other side. The other side of prayer, the interior of His throne room, the inner walls of His powerful, lovebeating heart.
-Ann Voskamp
If you like, you are welcome to name a grace moment, a small gift from God, in the comments on this post.
- Adam Forrest, Zondervan
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Learn more about Selections from One Thousand Gifts.
Visit Ann Voskamp's blog at www.aholyexperience.com.
Suggested Posts
How to See God During Hard Times via Ann Voskamp
Spirit-filled Living vs. "Just Trying Harder" via Jim Cymbala
(Image is an inset taken from Selections from One Thousand Gifts. Some styling above is web-exclusive. This post does not represent the views of Zondervan or any of its representatives. The writer's personal opinions are shared only for information purposes. To receive more enriching & encouraging posts, subscribe to Zondervan Blog.)
