Where does my help come from?
by John Berry
My wife and I were in Switzerland recently to teach on a course, and after the course we had the opportunity to visit other parts of Switzerland. Normally when participating in teaching there’s little time to see any more of the place we’re visiting, and so we were very pleased to accept the offer. We journeyed into the centre of the country and saw some of the famous Swiss lakes near Interlaken. Further into the Alps we were able to marvel at the awesome heights of the mountains of the region.
In one place, I was remarking on these amazing peaks, when our hostess said “no they are not the real high peaks, just look again.” At that moment the clouds parted a bit and another much higher mountain showed through for a few minutes. This was the true high peak.
I was reminded of how I limit God to less than He is. We’re all praying for God to intervene in some of the major issues that face Ellel Ministries at the moment, but maybe we’re restricting Him by having too small a view of Him. Instead of Him being ‘A Great Big God’ we can view the Lord as being made in our image, limited by our own imagination or expectations.
We may lift up our eyes to the hills for our help, but perhaps God wants us to see him as God of the mountains – an original meaning of the term El-Shaddai. The LORD Almighty is not even an awesome mountain of a God, He’s the Maker of the mountains, the Maker of heaven and earth. He is truly indescribable, incomparable, and uncontainable.
As we look at whatever the issues are that we face, whether they’re the huge financial things of Ellel Ministries, or maybe personal matters that are affecting us privately, let’s lift our eyes up beyond the hills and expect awesome responses from the God who is beyond both our high mountains and our human understanding. A great big God indeed!
Prayer: God Almighty, forgive us for limiting our expectations when we pray. Forgive us for having too small a vision of You. Forgive us for trying to fix things ourselves that really only You can fix. Give us a bigger view of whom You are, our indescribably big, yet personal and loving Father God. Amen.
John Berry entered the Baptist Ministry more than 40 years ago, and joined the Team at Ellel Glyndley Manor in 2007 with his wife Jennie. They have both now retired from the team but remain as part of the Teaching and Associate Ministry Teams at Glyndley. John and Jennie have seven Grandchildren.
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