One of my favorite things is when I get to see God moving in the lives of the people I care about. I sometimes call it a “shift in the universe”. Like, something just happened, and it was BIG. It’s like the shifting of the earth’s tectonic plates. It’s huge, but if you aren’t paying attention, you can miss it.

For me, it’s an adrenaline rush like little else, and when it happens I become like a junkie waiting for the next fix. I NEED it. I WANT it.

I’d love nothing more than to see God move mountains every day of my life. To see Him do things in ways that I could never have fathomed He could… or would. It reminds me that usually my idea of who God is, and just what He is capable of, is woefully small.

I mean we belong to the Creator of the universe. The same One who spoke earth into existence. The very One who created everything out of nothing. (I enjoy crafting things, “creating” things… but to date, I have never been able to create something from nothing.) And I want to put THAT God in a box and set limits to what He can do, what He is willing to do?

I have a friend who writes articles for real. Like it’s her job. She is one of my heroes. She recently wrote about God’s mercy and called it “severe mercy”. That’s when God walks us through painful things, and all the while it’s the most merciful thing He can do for us… even though it hurts. We walk through those valleys to get us to the place where we should be, to a position where we can see His face more clearly than ever before. He loves us enough to do that for us. It’s painfully wonderful.

Have you experienced a shift in the universe lately? Are you paying attention? Are you praying for God to do something only He can do, and then doubting his ability to do it? I do that. I say I don’t, but then when God moves, and I see it, I become painfully aware of just how much I doubted He would really move. How sad is that? It’s not like it’s my first time. I’m not new at this.

But when it happens, I can’t seem to wipe the smile off my face, and for a while my feet barely touch the ground. I giggle like a little girl. I come to appreciate even more my Heavenly Father and His miraculous interest in the lives of those who love Him. It’s awesome, and I feel a closer connectedness to the Father, and a better understanding of who He is and what He is capable of, that can elude me other times.

Hopeless or difficult situations are hopeless or difficult in the hands of man, but hopeless and difficult don’t even enter God’s vocabulary. God made hope… and difficult? What is difficult for God? (Matthew 19:26) Are we really willing to say that there is something God cannot do? Yes. Often we are. I am.

God gave us hope incarnate when He sent us His Son. We were dead in our sinfulness… without hope of any kind, and He sent Hope to us. Talk about a shift in the universe! What a day that was!

So that hopeless situation you face… that difficult problem that looms… place it securely in the hands of the One who has the power to make something from nothing. Give it to the One who can do more than we can ask or imagine (Ephesians 3:20). And then watch for that shift in the universe…

You’ll be a junkie just like me…