Home » Thoughts for the Week » The God Filter (25 November)

The God Filter (25 November)

This week our Thought for the Week comes from Laura Evans, our most recent member of EBA Council who is our CYF rep and is in ministry at Cornerstone, Kings Lynn as their Youth and Community Worker.

She writes:

But Jesus answered them, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.” John 5:17

As we approach the end of the second Lockdown, I find myself pondering on the goodness of God. It can be easy to see where God has been when you look back over your life but not quite so easy to see where God is when you are stuck in the thick of things.

I am reminded that God is just as creative today as He was at the beginning of time, when He formed the Earth and thought of us. It is wonderful to be reminded of this when we come face to face with everyday problems such as how we can be real salt and real light in the middle of a pandemic.

When I consider the goodness of God, when I become entirely reliant upon His creative skills, I am no long filled with dread for the day ahead but I am excited for the new things that He is about to create in this day for the glory of His Kingdom.

What comes to my mind is the wonderful story of when God leads Samuel to anoint the next king of Israel, David. For years and years, God had been preparing Samuel for this very moment, teaching Samuel to recognise His voice amongst to chaos of an unstable society. God didn’t choose any of the obvious sons of Jesse to be the next king, instead he chose David, the youngest of the brothers and throughout the rest of the Bible we see how God creatively uses that shepherd boy to eventually provide a Saviour.

God reminded us that day that He does not see things as we see them. Whereas we look at the outward appearance, God looks at the heart and, just as Isaiah writes, Gods thoughts are not our thoughts, and neither are our ways His ways.

This challenges me to put on my ‘God glasses’ and to look upon my difficulties with a God filter, remembering how creative He is and how complete his provision is. If I can step outside of my front door in the morning and allow myself to remember that God has creatively provided me with the right balance of oxygen and nitrogen to breath then I can be sure that God is sufficiently creative and good in the middle of a pandemic to provide us not just with solutions but also with opportunities.

What a wonderfully creative God we have. I am reminded that for us to see things as God sees them, to be salt and light in the middle of a pandemic, we only need to look to our creative Creator God, who is our guide and our hope. It might not look like He is being creative in the middle of a pandemic, but God is still the same; still providing, still creating, and still working.

Psalm 8:3-6

³ When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
⁴ what is man that you are mindful of him,
and the son of man that you care for him?

⁵ Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings^[a]
and crowned him with glory and honour.
⁶ You have given him dominion over the works of your hands;
you have put all things under his feet,