PSALM 46:10a – Be still, and know that I am God.”
PSALM 139:6 – Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it.”
THEME OF THE DAY: RIGHTLY OVERWHELMED. Today the average American worker will receive 108 e-mails, 243 million Americans own cell phones or hand-held devices, and Google currently indexes more than 3,304,998,701 web pages. We have access to more information in a day, probably an hour, than our parents had in a year. This instant access to information easily puts us in the arena of “information overload.” The statistics I just shared came from an article from a Reader’s Digest titled, “Don’t be Overwhelmed by Technology-Get a Grip” by Ron Geraci. I like the title. It rightly describes an experience all too familiar, the sense of being overwhelmed. It isn’t just being overwhelmed with information. If you are not too overwhelmed right now, take an inventory of areas where the feeling of being overwhelmed is experienced. Will any of these suggestions make your list? Overwhelmed with a job, overwhelmed with parenting, overwhelmed with domestic responsibilities, overwhelmed with finances, overwhelmed with demand on time, overwhelmed with loneliness…there are more, but reading a list of things which overwhelm us isn’t overly profitable. That alone would overwhelm us!
There is a good type of being overwhelmed. David knew it. When we can, please read Psalm 139. I call it “The Rightly Overwhelmed Psalm.” It is being overwhelmed by God Himself. Not overwhelmed with things about God or activities for God. It is God Himself overwhelming the soul. Before I make a feeble attempt to encourage us toward this unfathomable experience, we should distinguish between being overwhelmed by the world and overwhelmed by God. The first produces stressful instability, emotional fatigue, and a sense of always being on the go with no rest. The latter produces spiritual stability in the midst of worldly chaos, spiritual strength for meeting all of life’s challenges, and a spiritual rest making even the most demanding of schedules fulfilled with delightful joy.
So, what about this experience of being “rightly overwhelmed” by God? I concede. I cannot explain it. Nobody can. We just know it when it happens. It is like the peace that Paul says should be the normal experience of all believers – “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:6-7). If we could understand God and His ways, He wouldn’t be God. Paul says his peace, “surpasses all understanding.” David says the same thing about the knowledge of God when it floods the soul, “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it” (Psalm 139:6). However, just because we cannot get a handle on the experiential knowledge of God by understanding does not mean we cannot humble ourselves and seek to really know God. I do not have a “formula” to be “rightly overwhelmed with God”, but I do know one thing for us to consider. If we truly want to experience Him, we have to quiet ourselves down. That means take time to get off the fleeting merry-go-round of earthly existence and “be still” before Him (Psalm 46:10). That means ready Bibles pleading as the psalmist, “Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law (Psalm 119:18). If we do so with all our being, He has promised to “rightly overwhelm us” with His presence (Jeremiah 29:12,13).
Prayer: “Lord, to know You is to be overwhelmed by You. Overwhelmed by Your goodness and grace!”
Quote: “God is real. The question comes down to ‘Is He real to us because we take time to know He is real?”
Because of Him,
Pastor Jim