A note before this: this reflection is personal, and it's meant to be. This is the one slot in the week where first-person testimony belongs.
Today's finale is built on a song called "How Great" by Tauren Wells and Hulvey, and on one prayer from Ephesians: that you would be "filled to the measure of all the fullness of God." This week is called THERE'S MORE. For me, that's not a slogan. It's something I've had to learn the hard way.
What I Thought I Needed
For a long time, I believed how much of God I had depended on how well I could talk about Him. My whole life ran on words. Teaching, explaining, building things with language. If I could say it well, I felt close to Him. If I couldn't, I felt like I'd lost something.
On May 13, 2021, I died. Jesus placed His hand on my face and sent me back.
What I Came Back To
I came back to Primary Progressive Aphasia, a neurodegenerative condition that affects language and communication. The words don't come the way they used to. Some days a sentence I could once build without thinking takes everything I have.
That's been the hardest part of my story to say out loud, and I don't say it for sympathy. I say it because of what happened next.
There's More of Him Than My Words
Here's what I found. When a sentence won't come, He doesn't go anywhere. When my vocabulary shrinks, His presence doesn't. I used to think I was hitting a ceiling with God. It was never Him. It was my own limits, and He's been on the other side of them the whole time.
That's the whole week in one thought. I can't earn more of Him with better words, and you can't earn more of Him with a better performance. Moses didn't ask for a bigger speech. He asked for God's presence. In Exodus 33:15 he said, "If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here." He wanted the Promise-Giver, not just the promise.
If You Think Something Limits You
Whatever you think limits how much of God you can have, a word, a season, a failure, a diagnosis, hear me: it's not Him. Not more from Him. More of Him. He's closer than your best sentence.
— JDOT Pine
Sent Back to Lead You Forward.
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