A few weeks ago, I had flowers sent to my friend on the anniversary of the passing of a loved one.
You never know what you are going to get when you order flowers from the internet, but the flowers were beautiful. White roses with some greenery sprinkled in. Roses are my favorite, but
they usually only last about a week at most. They are usually wilting and losing their strength fairly quickly.
Two weeks later, she gave me those roses back to care for. Honestly, I didn’t know how they were 
even alive still. And day after day, I expected them to die. And day after day they proved me wrong. They never lost their strength, and some opened so much that they basically outgrew themselves. The petals opened so wide that the stem couldn’t hold them anymore.
Despite the fact I thought the odds were against them. They aren’t dying. They instead are overflowing…unlimited by its condition.
Limitless: My word for 2021
Do you all do a word for the year? I do. Usually I remember it all year, and it is in some ways how I pray through the year. But this year I forgot it. And didn’t remember it until yesterday. The word is “limitless”. At first I thought that the year didn’t hold the meaning of the word. And then I thought harder. And it really did. Because we serve a limitless God. A God who is faithful even if we are struggling in the faith department.
And if that is true, then He isn’t limitedly the things of this world. Or by our lack or faith, or fears. Our insecurities, doubts, and the things that we can’t wrap our human minds around.
Have you ever had a moment that you can’t wrap your head around? Even days or weeks, or years later? Like the magnitude of the moment was so large that you can’t fit it into what your human mind can comprehend?
Maybe the moments seem surreal, or like a dream, far from reality? Moments that make you say “Would you believe me if I told you….”. But reality is what it is.
And that can be like our view of God, and then who He actually is. Maybe we unintentionally limit Him, because of what we think limits us.
Recently the friend I shared the roses with, and I with experienced this firsthand. And I could tell you a lot of stories about our limitless God from this year, but this one is the one that left me in the most awe.
We were preparing for an event. Everything was in place. People were stepping up in a way that I have never seen before to accomplish God’s work. I can best describe it as the body of Christ working together, and I had never witnessed it working as beautifully as I had on this day.
Everything was okay (even great), until it wasn’t. Suddenly some of us were in a room, most of us on our knees crying out to God to intervene, because we knew He could (even if He didn’t). One day I will share the story with you, but for more this is what I will say. It was an hour of a flurry of phone calls, texts, and planning in the event things didn’t change dramatically and quickly. Either God needed to move, or a couple of us were going to the ER.
We knew one thing. He was God. And He would be glorified no matter what. And regardless, that was our deepest desire.
In a way, we were limited. But God…
And as instantly as things “suddenly” began, things “suddenly” changed (it only took an hour and a half).
God is not limited by the things that limit us.
It feels like a dream. Still months later, in a way it almost feels like it didn’t happen. But it did, and we have the pictures to prove it. And God was glorified in greater ways than we could have ever hoped or imagined, as we knew He would be. Our faith grew, and we saw that truly God is not limited by the things that we think limit us. And if it is a part of His will, we aren’t limited by the things that we think limit us either.
I will remember this for the rest of my life.
“Jesus was standing in my room.”
A couple months ago, Olivia told me she had a dream about Jesus.
“Jesus was standing in my room. He didn’t even fit in my room because he was so big! He had a white robe on. It made me happy because I love Jesus. He is really nice”
When Olivia told me about Jesus being in her room, I immediately thought of Isaiah.
I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple (Isaiah 6:1)
She said that He was so big that He could not fit in her room. Just as only the train of His robe filled the temple. Just like He is so big that we can’t fully comprehend His ways, or contain His greatness or majesty. But if we trust in Him, we will see it.
Olivia said something else that night. “Jesus is coming back.”
Yes, He is. Out of the mouth of a babe. And until that day, my hope and prayer for all of us is that (like the roses) our faith and hope isn’t limited by a stem. May we all deeply know the limitless God we get to serve. The God of all hope. The One who fills us with joy and peace so that we overflow with hope… by the power of the Holy Spirit.
