“We’re going on a bear hunt.
We’re going to catch a big one.
What a beautiful day!
We’re not scared.
Oh-oh! A snowstorm!
We can’t go over it.
We can’t go under it.
Oh, no! We’ve got to go through it!”
-Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury
Thomas loves a bear hunt. It doesn’t matter if we’re waiting in the car, inside on a rainy day, or outside in our yard, when he climbs up into my lap for a bear hunt, we’re wading through rivers up to our armpits, swishing through tall grass, slogging through mud, braving snow storms and dark forests to find the cave where brown bear lives. Getting there is only half the fun. We hold our breath as we tiptoe into the cave. Running home again as fast as we can makes him wild with giggles, and I can feel him holding on tight with his arms and legs even though my lap is very near the floor and there’s absolutely no danger of falling.
Our imaginations are incredible gifts from God, designed for His purposes. Creativity stems from imagination for we are formed in the image of our Creator, God, but like every good and perfect gift, the enemy who seeks only to kill, steal, and destroy will stop at nothing to pervert the beauty that God intends.
My teenaged niece is a singer and songwriter studying worship leadership in college. Her parents have encouraged her gift in many tangible ways, paving the way for her to post worship music videos beginning during pandemic and continuing today. https://youtu.be/vqwVjGAh4_Y She writes, as I do, from the overflow of her relationship with her Lord and Savior, Jesus. I write devotions and she pens lyrics, but we are both moved by love for and obedience to Christ.
She shared a collection of hymns and songs recorded with only her own guitar accompaniment with me last year. During the months of my chemotherapy prior to my cancer surgery, I listened to her half hour recording on repeat many times a day. The melodies flowed one into the next allowing me to rest when I otherwise struggled with fear or discomfort from side effects. She encouraged me at a time when I was unable to buoy myself.
One familiar phrase from her recording comes from a song by Brandon Lake. I believe God was using his song to encourage her at the time as well. As I played her recording again today while my granddaughter was napping, I caught the now familiar refrain.
I’m going all in,
in over my head
wherever You go,
God, I will follow
I’m not scared to get
lost in your love
Brandon Lake Lost In Your Love lyrics https://g.co/kgs/B5i4yg
How many times has fear kept us in our seats, tied our hands or our tongues, or otherwise silenced us? What God-given gift is lying dormant in you right now? I’m not sure what this young man was walking through when God have him these lyrics, but I’m certain they have great meaning for him, but they were not for him alone. He’s been given an opportunity to share his words with the world and many people have been encouraged. Our gifts are varied and complementary, and they were given to us for the building up of the body of Christ, the Church universal. What we share with each other is hope and strength and love and life when we use our God-given gifts in all their various forms for His glory.
“God has given each of you a gift from his great variety of spiritual gifts.
Use them well to serve one another.
Do you have the gift of speaking?
Then speak as though God himself were speaking through you.
Do you have the gift of helping others?
Do it with all the strength and energy that God supplies.
Then everything you do will bring glory to God through Jesus Christ.
All glory and power to him forever and ever!
Amen.”
1 Peter 4:10-11 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/1pe.4.10-11.NLT
My Granny baked pound cakes and prayed for her children, grandchildren, and now great-grandchildren by name to the glory of God. My mother writes notes to the glory of God. I am beneficiary of their faithful use of God-given gifts in the same way Timothy’s faith benefitted from the faith of his mother and grandmother. (II Timothy 1:5) And my words, written and prayed, aloud and in private, are surely impacting my own family now and beyond what I can ask or imagine.
“Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.
Glory to him in the church and in Christ Jesus through all generations forever and ever!
Amen.”
Ephesians 3:20-21 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/eph.3.20-21.NLT
Storms will come. Deep water will threaten to overwhelm us. Darkness will try to obscure our way, but we have a Heavenly Father who gives us everything we need for living a godly life (II Peter 1:3) and that includes each other.
Today is the day of salvation. (II Corinthians 6:2)
We are Christ’s ambassadors. (II Corinthians 5:20)
It’s a beautiful day.
We’re not scared.
A Fitting Reply 