SEEING GOD IN OUR STORIES - by Susan Fochler

When we pray, “Your Kingdom Come”, we are inviting God’s kingdom to invade our daily lives, both in the big events, and the tiny details.  And when we add “Your will be done”-we are agreeing that His ways are higher than our ways, and that life is better when we embrace His perspective and priorities in how we engage with our world.  In Joshua 3 and 4 we read how the Israelites finally get ready to cross the Jordan and enter the promised land after 400 years of slavery and wandering in the wilderness.  God gives clear instructions on how they are to do this:  1) Keep your eyes on the ark (God's presence) 2) Remember what He has done for you, and keep telling that story to your children. And He immediately gives them something to remember: as the priests carry the ark across the Jordan River the water miraculously dries up just as it did for Mosesat the Red Sea!  Those instructions still apply to our stories today.  But there’s one part of that story that’s been a mystery to me: why they were told to stay so far behind the ark, approximately 1/2 mile.  The priests stood in the middle of the river, and the Israelites were to keep their eyes on the ark as they crossed over to the other side.  God reminded me that sometimes I can get so close to and familiar with my story that I become hyper-focused on the expected outcome and I can miss the fullness of what God is doing in the moment.  In the Kingdom of Heaven, the process is just as important as the outcome, perhaps even more; for God is all about filling our process with His presence and purposes, and allowing the end result to develop as the fruit of that journey.  On my work computer system, a change made on one monitor won’t automatically transfer that change to my computer unless I do a “refresh”.  Sometimes I need to do the same thing in my life’s journey.  I need to step back, invite Heaven in, widen my view and “refresh” my perspective to see where He is and what He’s doing.  And may He continue to do, in us and through us, abundantly beyond anything we could ask or imagine! Love, Susan