To Make Larger
Isn’t it fun to see beautiful and intricate details become larger?
The object remains the same size but we make it appear larger by using a lens or electronic device. We see minutiae that was hidden. Tiny particles and movements proudly take their place on a broader stage for all to see. Your life may have been saved due to man’s ability to magnify.
Speech That Magnifies
We can make something larger with our words, too. I know, you immediately think about the fish stories men tell, but I am not referring to lying or stretching the truth. I mean that we can speak about truths that people have never noticed, or have forgotten, or that have become lost in the spinning morass of competing ideas. God is such an idea, and we can magnify Him by giving thanks to Him in the company of those who seldom think about Him.
The Hiddenness of God
God is not small. But God is hidden. Can’t see Him. Can’t touch Him. Can’t hear Him. An increasing number of people in the world believe He does not even exist because He cannot be detected using the scientific method and our amazing technology.
Even Job, in ancient days, complained, “Behold, I go forward, but he is not there, and backward, but I do not perceive him; on the left hand when he is working, I do not behold him; he turns to the right hand, but I do not see him” (Job 23:8-9).
Moses wrote “The secret things belong to the Lord,” and Solomon said, “It is the glory of God to conceal things” (Prov. 25:2), and Isaiah wrote “Truly, you are a God who hides himself” (Is. 45:15).
God is this way by design, hiding Himself from the casual browser and revealing Himself only to those who truly dig and work hard to discover Him for themselves, like those who search for golden rocks in South Africa’s mines.
Moses told Israel, one day, “you will seek the Lord your God and you will find him, if you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul (Deuteronomy 4:29). Almost 3,000 years later, a 17th century French Christian philosopher highlighted the same idea.
“[God] determined that it was not right that He should appear in an obviously divine manner, completely capable of convincing all men; but it was also not right that He should come in so hidden a manner that He could not be known by those who were sincerely seeking Him.
He has, therefore, willed to make himself quite recognizable and willing to appear openly to those who seek Him with all their heart, and to be hidden from those who flee from Him with all their heart. He so regulates the knowledge of Himself that He has given signs of Himself, visible to those who seek Him, and not to those who do not seek Him.” – Blaise Pascal
Magnifying the Lord
So, our God is hidden – out of sight, out of mind to the world around us. What can we do?
We can season a conversation ever so humbly and tastefully by openly giving thanks to God for … whatever fits … our kids, for a clean bill of health, for our marriage, for a job, for the accident we just avoided, for the peace we feel knowing God is in control, for a confident expectation beyond the grave. Expressing thanks to God, without debating His existence, opens the door for the Spirit of God to confirm to an unbelieving heart that He is there.
I will praise the name of God with a song; I will magnify him with thanksgiving.
Psalm 69:30
How do you make God bigger by being th(i)nkful? The Hebrew word in the above verse for magnify is gadal. It means: to advance, boast, bring up, exceed, lift up, increase, promote. It is actually a marketing term.
When we speak up and say we’re thankful to God, we magnify Him. Our words focus a mental lens on the God that others have failed to notice. All of a sudden – whoah! – there is God … behind that thing that is going well … behind that virtue you learned in the hard times.
What Do You Magnify?
Chances are you magnify something. It begins with what you focus on in your mind. You dwell on it. You’re intrigued by it. You study it out. You worship it in that you give it ‘worth’ in your thought-time priority.
And then you speak … and cause others to push back the clutter and focus on it as well.
Time to magnify God.
Start today.
But our friend Carmen loves God and runs to Him in prayer, with thankfulness.
Think of a dog chasing a cat. The cat has no desire to stay put if a huge German Shepard is charging its way.
(like a journal or a ring with index cards).
My life in the will of God right now is a bit crazy. We have two “homes” – an apartment in Amanzimtoti, South Africa, and a mission-owned house in Atlanta to which we return twice a year while we train new missionaries. It is bizarre to leave home … to go back home!
The Apostle Paul writes that the message about Jesus should be at home in us profusely, filling every room, like that Yankee Candle. His Word should fill and flavor our thinking, influencing what we want, what we mediate on, and eventually what we say and do.
You feel like you got such a good deal. You received a benefit, but did not have to pay for it. In Norwegian and a number of other languages, the word gratis is actually used for the word free. You did not pay for it. It was gratis.
In Namaqualand, South Africa, there is a beautiful burst of glorious flowers that come gratis with the first rains that end the dry season. An otherwise parched desert produces this kaleidoscopic carpet. What a great metaphor for a dry heart, full of ingratitude, experiencing the spring rains of God’s grace resulting in a variegated burst of th(i)nkfulness.
The Apostle Paul used this wardrobe principle in “the twin epistles” – Ephesians and Colossians. If you are following Jesus, 
How often do you put on gratitude? Do you know where it is in your closet? Do you even own the garment? You might need to go shopping.
Romans 12:2 says we are transformed by renewing the mind – learning to think God’s thoughts. Life isn’t about me; it’s about God. He is not my genie; I am His servant. Earth is the unbeliever’s only heaven, and the believer’s only hell. Hard times aren’t a disaster; God designs them to refine, strengthen, and improve me as an image-bearer of the Creator.
A few years ago Dr. John Piper, a leading pastor in the States, was diagnosed with cancer. He published an interesting 
The Power of a Speaker
But Jesus also wants to speak through you. Lack of gratitude is common; it leaves you at the audience level and gives you no platform from which to speak. Similarly, drawing attention to yourself, your courage, and your virtues in your triumphs and trials also falls flat with most people.
But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?
Zooming up from Zululand, where we live now at the bottom of the earth … to Norway at the top of the earth, let me take you on a short trip. I grew up in a little town called Brumunddal, Norway. My father built a house that we called ‘Solheim’ on the hillside of Bjørgeberget.
They happened to bloom close to my birthday in July. I was so thrilled to find such beauties in the meadow on my birthday. I loved them. These wildflowers were so very delicate … frail … exquisite.
Marc and their daughter are her joys. She has a strong love for the hurting; that does not mean just humans, but also animals of all kinds. 🙂 She struggles to see someone in pain and works so hard as a doctor to help.
