subject: Living Life To The Fullest [print this page] Living Life To The Fullest Living Life To The Fullest
John Ortberg shares about a friend who was diagnosed with cancer. For six months they prayed together for his healing every Saturday. At the end of that time his friend called him and told him the tests revealed the cancer was back and worse than ever.
The next day his friend was called by the doctor who was in an obvious panic. Once inside the physician's office the doctor told him that his blood tests had been mixed up and that he was indeed cancer free. Apologizing profusely for the mistake, the doctor vowed to fire the lab technician if necessary. He left the decision up to John's friend, who looked at the doctor and said, "If you bring him into this room, I will kiss him! I thought I was dead, now I am alive!"
Perhaps you have had one of those experiences when everything changed in a moment, where your mourning was turned into dancing and what you imagined to be the worst day of your life turned out to be the best. Where suddenly breath rushed back into your lungs and light shattered the darkness and suddenly all was right with the world. Those are divine interruptions, timeless flashes of eternity invading our lives.
Years ago when Poland was under Communist rule, the Poles waited diligently on a miracle to repel the Russians from their homeland. Eventually the Russians left voluntarily. Historians trace the beginning of the end of Russia's occupation to a visit by Pope John Paul II. Defying their oppressors, for thirteen minutes the Poles shouted three words upon the Pope's arrival, "We want God! We want God!"
Perhaps more stunning is the picture Jesus painted of God wanting us as well, warts and all. John said it simply when he shared, "We love him, because he first loved us" (1 John 4:19). All around us evidence of the love of God calls us to come experience being fully alive, the very thing we all want.
For the past several weeks I have been taking quiet hikes around Cleveland Metroparks. All around life abounds, from ducklings to rabbit kits to nestlings ready to take their first flights. I have seen toads smaller than a fingernail, turtles that would fit in the palm of a child's hand, and encountered more species of flower and tree than I could count.
Maybe it was the beginning of summer that led Martin Luther to share, "The power of God is present at all places, even in the tiniest tree leaf. God is wholly present in all creation, in every corner, behind you and before you."
Or as Augustine (354-430) so aptly put it, "Some people, in order to discover God, read books. But there is a great book: the very appearance of created things. Look above you! Look below you! Note it. Read it. God, whom you want to discover, never wrote that book with ink. Instead he set before your eyes the things that he had made. Can you ask for a louder voice than that?"
