miracles in the toolshed

CS Lewis in Meditation in a Toolshed,

I was standing today in the dark toolshed. The sun was shining outside and through the crack at the top of the door there came a sunbeam. From where I stood that beam of light, with the specks of dust floating in it, was the most striking thing in the place. Everything else was almost pitch-black. I was seeing the beam, not seeing things by it.

Then I moved, so that the beam fell on my eyes. Instantly the whole previous picture vanished. I saw no toolshed, and (above all) no beam. Instead I saw, framed in the irregular cranny at the top of the door, green leaves moving on the branches of a tree outside and beyond that, ninety-odd million million miles away, the sun. Looking along the beam, and looking at the beam are very different experiences.

John Piper comments,

The sunbeams of blessing in our lives are bright in and of themselves. They also give light to the ground where we walk. But there is a higher purpose for these blessings. God means for us to do more than stand outside them and admire them for what they are. Even more, he means for us to walk into them and see the sun from which they come. If the beams are beautiful, the sun is even more beautiful. God's aim is not that we merely admire his gifts, but, even more, his glory.

Amen! As I think about the recent posts regarding miracles I realize that while it is so sad that many cannot see the "sun beam", it is just as sad that that is all some others might see. We desire to see many, many sun beams, but then we must allow that to move us to a place where we can see the sun! Praise God for His glory and His light shining into our every day lives - even today.

And then, somehow, I think this links back to magnifying Him. If we stand outside of the beam, at best people see us and perhaps they see the beam we point to. At worse, we block the beam. If we step into the beam, not only do we see the Giver of Light as He truly is, but somehow we become less visible and He comes into better focus for those that are watching. The miracle is that as we decrease, He increases. He is then more visible to the world as He really is - glorious and wonderful. We do not make Him so, but rather than blocking His light, we magnify it - or rather, Him.

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