God the Gamechanger
When I was a kid – about 9 or 10 – I bought a deck of trick cards. They looked just like a regular deck of cards to an untrained eye. But to me, they were the potential to wow my friends for hours on end with the tricks I had learned. I studied the instructions all weekend and couldn’t wait to go to school on Monday. Boy, were my friends were going to be amazed!
Oh, they were amazed all right…for about 20 minutes. Then I ran out of tricks. Umm, let’s go slide down the slide now, OK? Needless to say, 30 years later, I have not revived my career as a magician. I won’t be appearing suspended in a tank of jello helping David Blaine escape certain doom, and David Copperfield hasn’t asked to share billing with me in Vegas. (But I did get to watch Doug Henning film his entrance into the Magic Kingdom for a TV special at Disney World once…)
In the second chapter of 1 Samuel, Hannah delivers some powerful lyrics of praise after fulfilling her promise to dedicate her son Samuel to the Lord and allow him to live and serve at the temple with the priests. These lines tell the story not of a magician with 20 minutes of card tricks – no, she speaks of the God who changes the game:
3 “Do not keep talking so proudly or let your mouth speak such arrogance,
for the Lord is a God who knows, and by him deeds are weighed.
4 “The bows of the warriors are broken, but those who stumbled are armed with strength.
5 Those who were full hire themselves out for food, but those who were hungry are hungry no more.
She who was barren has borne seven children, but she who has had many sons pines away.
6 “The Lord brings death and makes alive; he brings down to the grave and raises up.
7 The Lord sends poverty and wealth; he humbles and he exalts.
If Siegfried and Roy saw the miracles of the gamechanging God, they’d probably wet their sequined pants. If Penn and Teller could witness what God did for Hannah…well, they just might believe.
The God we love and serve is no magician. He’s the all-powerful, all-knowing, all-caring Gamechanger. And the coolest thing is, we have Him at our fingertips! We don’t have to go through a priest; in fact, Jesus became the ultimate high priest who sacrificed Himself on our behalf. We have a personal relationship with the Gamechanger! Arm yourself with that knowledge today, and see if you don’t find yourself spouting off some praises of your own.
How does knowing that we have a personal relationship with a powerful, gamechanging God affect the way you go about your day? How can you show Him your gratefulness for His power today? How can you share Him with others today?
Photo by Sergi Viladesau on Unsplash