God Work

“Glory to God, who is able to do far beyond all that we could ask or imagine by his power at work within us.” Ephesians 3:20

God does more than we can imagine.

In keeping with the thread I began with the last post, God does work that is unexpected … in me. My inner life, my ‘soul,’ is being remade to match the deep work God did in me several decades ago.

There is a very real sense that the deep core of my being was swapped out back in the early 1970’s. A new me was installed, a new kernel (in computer-speak). However, much of the external stuff remains: habits, distorted memories, dysfunctional perceptions, and even some physical things associated with brain and other biological stuff. Much of that exterior, non-core stuff will stick with me until my physical death. But some of it; the seeming soft, but stubbornly persistent, stuff like habits, perceptions, and other mental elements are shaped in by a few 'tools.'

One of those tools is raw age. More years under the belt ought to produce better perspective. That is part of “maturity.”

Another tool is the phenomena we call raw luck. Some life events just happen, or don’t, and that shapes us.

Yet there is a powerful tool that is more subtle and profoundly beneficial and that is the work that God can do in the inner life of the believer.

When we read the text above, we can sometimes jump to the miraculous: that God can do unexpected physical miracles. I affirm the reality of miracles – that they have happened and do happen.

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But that seems to stretch the text. Notice that God’s power is accomplishing things working within us. Reshaping and changing that inner life, which is so easy to ignore in our times – that is powerful work. That is God work.