Exceedingly More Than You Can Imagine | God's Not Limited By Your Ability to See

Beloveds, I've got good news! God's power isn't limited by your capability to anticipate or perceive His goodness. When you can't even imagine better, and your eyes can't see God's faithfulness on the horizon. You can rest assured in the truth that He is still able to do exceedingly more. 

In this episode, let's dive into this truth together.


Scriptures Mentioned:  

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us,
Ephesians 3:20 NIV 

I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. 
Psalm 27:13 NIV 

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
Psalm 23:6 ESV 
(That word Mercy is talking about the Steadfast Love of God) 

Let the message about Christ, in all its richness, fill your lives. Teach and counsel each other with all the wisdom he gives. Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God with thankful hearts. 
Colossians 3:16 

Let the sunrise of your love end our dark night. Break through our clouded dawn again! Only you can satisfy our hearts, filling us with songs of joy to the end of our days. We’ve been overwhelmed with grief; come now and overwhelm us with gladness. Replace our years of trouble with decades of delight.
Psalm 90:14-15 TPT

The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God endures forever.”
Isaiah 40:8 NIV

For he satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul he fills with good things.
Psalm 107:9 ESV

I lift up my eyes to the mountains— where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord , the Maker of heaven and earth. He will not let your foot slip— he who watches over you will not slumber; indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord watches over you— the Lord is your shade at your right hand; the sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord will keep you from all harm— he will watch over your life; the Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore.
Psalms 121:1-8 NIV

Letter from the host:

Dear Beloveds, 

Reflecting on and responding to the faithful and intelligent love of God has been therapeutic to my mind, heart, and body! I vulnerably share because I want you to experience the joy of authentic connection with Jesus, yourself, and others. 

Growth happens at the point of connection. Thank you for trusting me with this connection! I'm glad to be with you! 

With joy, 

Gabrielle Michelle 

New episodes Bi-weekly! On Wednesdays! 

Thanks for subscribing and leaving a review! Please feel free to share with your family and friends. 

Website: https://www.returningtojoy.com/

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Music by AG (Affirming Grace) @agmusic4god 

Transcript

Gabrielle Leonard: 0:25

Welcome to the return to joy podcast. I'm your host, Gabrielle Michel Leonard. Here we're leading people to cultivate joy through storytelling. We hope listening will reveal pathways to unlocking the healing power of connection, so that you can see your relationships and the world around you transformed from fractured into flourishing. Thank you for bearing with me. I know I know, it has been like three weeks since I have released a podcast episode. But thank you for showing up nonetheless, to listen to another one. It is always a joy anytime I get on here to share what it is that I've been processing with the Lord or how he's encouraging me how I'm you know, working through things. This particular episode has been rather therapeutic for me, are these episodes have continued to be rather therapeutic for me. And I know I've heard from some of you and saying that it's really been a help to hear how I'm processing with God and to hear even how I'm encouraging myself in His Word. And so if you're one of those people out there that have been really encouraged by what you've been hearing on these episodes, or maybe you've been really growing and seeing maturity just in in your walk through listening to these, please give me a holler. I would love to hear from you. out so that way I have like a face to put with, you know the list of listeners, because right now I just have like numbers. And I'm a very relational person, if you know me well. And so numbers are not motivating enough for me of like, okay, cool, as many people are listening, I love hearing stories, and I love seeing faces. Because it's it's it's real people that God is moving on the hearts of and it's and it's a beautiful work. And it it, you know, pushes me forward all the more. So if you've been encouraged, if this has been if any episode on here has been really impactful for you, please, please reach out to me and let me know. Obviously, you know, the Instagram is returning to joy podcast. Facebook, though I'm barely on there is just returning to joy. Or you can just go to the website. And I think that I think there is a contact form where you could put in. Yeah, you can you can shoot me a message there. And I'll get back to you. All right. Now that that's out of the way. I am very excited to share with you just what the Lord put on my heart today. This is coming. This is coming out fresh and hot. Yeah, so I'm gonna just dive right into it. Man A couple months ago, I think it was maybe I don't know. I don't know. Time is a blur. Who knows time these days. Anyways, not that long ago really feels like yesterday, I was really struggling going through a hard time. Um, be dishonest, even specifically, of like, part of the hard time I was going through part of the heart was like a recent breakup that I had had. And I that makes with some other things had me in a conversation with God, where I very specifically told him, God, I can't even imagine better. I can't even imagine better. So if God's ability to show up and be faithful, is dependent upon my ability to perceive his goodness, in the midst of the situation, then I'm stuck. So there was so much shame connected to that confession of I can't even imagine better. I can't see it. There's like this black hole in front of me. This, this just blank, this nothingness. So the shame there was crippling in that moment. Because I'm thinking God, how are you going to show up for me? How am I going to experience your goodness in the land of the living? If I can't even see it? I can't even imagine it, which was such was so foreign for me because I am very much so a seer. I can see what the Lord is up to I don't necessarily mean in the sense of specifically but you know, when you just know in the depths of you of man, like God's God's doing something right now. And that ability to perceive and see, you know, that God is doing something in spite of what we can or cannot see, was just shut off for me in a moment. But the sweet and really cool thing was As immediately after beginning of life I, Mao that confession to the lord of God, I can't even imagine better. I heard the Lord speak to me to my heart. He said, It's okay if you can't imagine. And there was such this wave of peace that washed over me instantly. And I love how the Lord confirms things in his word. Then immediately Ephesians 320 came to my mind, where he says, where the Word says, Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we can ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us. Oh, that just that does something for me even still, even still. I'm not gonna lie, like I am clinging to that verse. Still, I'm not. I'm not deep in the midst of what felt like a pit of darkness that I was in, in that moment when I first cried that out a couple months ago. But can I tell you that that word has been something that I'm clinging to have, like, I don't even have to be able to imagine it? I know this worse, don't get me wrong. I know this versus saying he's able to do exceedingly more than we are able to ask or imagine. But that's the thing. I heard in that I heard God saying, It's okay, if you can't imagine because guess what, even if you could imagine it, even if you could conceive better, even if you could see my goodness, even if you could go Oh, yeah, but I know what God's gonna do, or I know the possibilities of what he could do, I know what breakthrough is going to could look like in this moment in the season for me, even if you could do it, if you could, even if your mind was able to conceive it right now, in this moment, I would still be able to do better than that, I would still be able to perform more and do greater according to the work my power that is at work already Gabrielle within you. God doesn't even need your imagination, to be on par with what he's able to do. That just set me free. And I, I had to I wanted to get on this dome behind the mic real quick to say that anybody who listens, because let that set you free. I'm gonna I'm gonna get into talking about some, some passages and some scriptures that I've been reading in the, in the digging in the word that I've been doing in these last several months on another level. But, but first, I think the Lord just needs to set you free from any shame and any guilt and any condemnation that would say that would even put a performance on you. Even when it comes to your, your faith walk. Like I gotta I gotta pray enough, I gotta do enough, I gotta believe enough. I gotta trust God enough, I gotta perceive it enough. My thoughts gotta be in alignment. I gotta be meditating all these different things. And I have to have this highest level of conception of like, what God is able to do for God to show up for me to see the goodness of the Lord. And I just want to set you free from that, like he's set me free from that. In a moment of just saying, baby girl, daughter, son, you don't even it's okay. If you can't imagine you don't even have to be able to imagine. Because guess what I'm able to do exceedingly more than what even your imagination could conceive of. We can't out think the goodness of God and in our in our thoughts, even when our thoughts are weak, even when our mind is weak. Just really, really thankful for that. I'm going to mall I'm going to I'm going to time right now that man with a lot of prayer with a lot of reading of Scripture with like talking to people like me, we're by the grace of God, like my thoughts are pretty sound right now. But can I tell you that it would it felt really good. And I believe actually that the Lord made a way for himself, you know, to show up in my life he made a way for the clarity of mind and heart that I'm experiencing right now, by setting me free from shame specifically in regards to the the lack of capacity I felt like my mind and heart had in that moment. You need to know that God is good, even when you can't perceive his goodness. I don't say that in a way of saying like, so you just got to believe God's good. No, I'm sacks wouldn't hear me when I'm saying God is good even when you can't see his goodness. So that means that in those moments when you can't perceive of God's goodness, guess what, he's still going to be good towards you. He's still going to be faithful even when you can't even perceive of his faithfulness. I can't tell you how many times I've quoted to myself, Psalms 23, forgetting the specific verse within it, but it's still when it says, Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life. I quote that verse so many times, because there's, I remember one time walking, I was like, doing a hike. And I was by myself at the time, someone had told me about this really cool Brook and stream that was, you know, a little ways out, if you just, you know, come they just what they told me the path is, you know, easy, just just walk straight or walk up this way. And you'll see this really pretty stream and, and I remember I had wanted some people that were there some different friends to come with me, but they weren't able to come with me. So I'm walking alone, to find this stream feels quite biblical. Or prophetic, you know, but I am walking, and I'm just, I had begun having this conversation with the Lord, this was like, maybe two years ago. Um, I've just been like, man, God, like, there's some spaces in my life where I'm tired of walking alone in. And I just felt, even in that moment, just really grateful, and thankful for Psalms 23. And specifically that various because I was just reminded of man, even in the moments when we feel like we're walking along, because there's some times when we don't feel like we can even see in front of us, you know, seeing in front of us is hard. Perceiving God's faithfulness ahead. And sometimes, it can even seem like, you know, there's an absence or, or a lack, you know, in regards to who is in and what is present with us in a moment. And obviously, we know the Lord is faithful up ahead, and he is when he walks with us, you know, in our current moment in situation, and I believe he brings people alongside of us, but even when we can't see it, Psalms 23 That Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life. I'm not sure if this is like, this is not you know, the only interpretation just I'm just telling you my experience with that verse and why it encourages me. It encourages me because I go, I'm really thankful for the fact that even when I can't see up ahead, and I can't make out God's faithfulness up ahead, and I'm not sure I'm not 100% sure if he's walking with me, currently, maybe it doesn't feel quite like it. I find this I find this comfort and going. But Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life. It's almost this up for me, it almost feels like this hindsight of like, oh, every time I look back, I know I'm gonna go, Oh my gosh, he was with me. Oh my gosh, like his goodness was chasing after me. And his goodness, was like covering over all the places of pain and His mercy was was sheltering me. And it's this is it feels like this comforting blanket to know that the things that are following me in my life are the goodness and mercy of God. So that first encourages me because it's like, Man, I may not see up ahead. Up ahead may be blurry. What's happening right now in the midst of me may be uncertain and I may feel unstable in some ways, but I can guarantee you goodness, and mercy is following me. Let me let me look back. Let me look back. And I can always pimp I can always see oh god, how you were faithful. And that helps steady me in the current and then helps me to build an expectation for the future. He has been faithful in the past and he will up ahead. Look at me, I know Adam already gotten off track. That was not what I was going to talk about or transition to but it is what it is. And I pray that was an encouragement to somebody on here. Um, where are we going to go now? So I do want to read this first because I read it this morning. I read many read like the chapter of Colossians three. But this first stood out to me, I need y'all to know I care about context of Scripture. Just it's just gonna be a little sidebar, even if I be out here quoting one verse, you girl knows the context. So random, anyways Colossians 316 It says, Let the message about Christ, in all its richness, fill your lives, teach and counsel each other, with all the wisdom he gives. Sing songs, sing psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs to God with thankful hearts, and Murray that again, let the message about Christ in all its richness, fill your lives, teach and counsel each other, with all the wisdom he gives, sing psalms and hymns, the spirit and the spiritual songs to God with thankful hearts. I really love that last line, the spiritual songs, songs to God with thankful hearts, you can read in a couple of different versions. But essentially, it's talking about that span that spontaneous prophetic utterances of the hearts and it's not talking about just for worship leaders in the fancy people on stage, it's talking about for all the believers of like, you, the Lord can put a new song in your heart. And what's so beautiful about that is, man, there is there is a season I don't know you, you know, I don't know who I'm talking to right now. But I can guarantee this, that the Lord knows you, he sees you. And the specific season that you're in His goodness is so good, that he will give to you a song that will a beautiful melody that will shine a light upon like, what he is up to in doing prophetically in your life, in the midst of your situation. So I love like singing songs that others have put out it is a jam. But there is something so good. And I know it takes some courage, especially you know, I mean, not if you're gonna do it by yourself, but you know, it takes courage if you're gonna do it around, you know, around other people, but to just to read the scriptures to be in the Word of God and then to just let your heart open up and just sing like what would if you were to just start singing to the Lord spontaneously. I wonder what he would what he would, what would come out of that. I bet it would be a melody in a song that represents specifically what the Lord is singing over you, or what he's put inside your heart for you to sing back to him. That is this, this prophetic utterance this, this truth of like God, you will be this you are this right now. And I am nine. It is not what I'm going through what we're going through as a people will not be the last and final word, but this Lord is true. Whatever that truth is, that's another random tangent, but it's not. But the only reason why I quote this verse Colossians, 316, because it just encouraged me to encourage you guys have it talking about like, the message about Christ and all of its richness, filling our lives and for us to pass that on to one another. I did this this collective bumping into one another. We're we're, we're we're allowing this overflow to come out of us. And we're passing on the wisdom that God has given to us. And we're passing on how we're being ministered to into his word. It is a way of bringing about so much healing and freedom in our lives. I love how proverbs 420 talks about filling our thoughts with his word. And in these last couple of months, I have just filled my thoughts with his word. Truly, I love studying the Bible, I love going deep in the Word of God. But in these last couple of months, it has been so needed and necessary and I've I've found a new I think I've rediscovered the power to just reading scripture, not even trying to get something out of it. And so I hope you're tracking with me what I mean by that. But there's something so powerful to even in the moments when because I know sometimes you know maybe you don't pull up you don't pull up your open your Bible and you don't read it because you're just like man, I'm exhausted. And also I don't know if I can extract anything from this again, where it feels like the burden in the demand is on you to like work out something in your life. But real instead of this partnership and trust on like the Lord to to in his power to be at work within you. And so I think that I've rediscovered the power of just man, I'm just about to sit before I'm allowed. I'm gonna just let myself sit before this word. That makes sense. It's even being even that being different than Okay, all right, I'm coming before the word. And the word is sitting before me. And I'm trying to like, take something from it, and study it deeply and get something out of it, which there's a place for that, too. And there's a need for that, too. I think I'm specifically speaking to any folks that are in a season right now, where they're like, I'm struggling, I'm struggling in my thoughts. I'm struggling in my heart, I feel like I'm holding on by a thread. And maybe even you're like, and I don't even know if I can perceive the goodness of God, if I could see it, if it, you know, smack me in the face thickness, you're not going to face but anyways. Or if you're like, Man, I just, I'm even, you know, teetering on the edge of like, I don't know, if I believe this to be true. You know, I'm struggling. And I add to that is, to those people are who I'm speaking to, when I say I see you. And I in that space makes sense to me. And in those moments is, so I'm realizing how, on the other side, I'm realizing how fruitful just simply reading His word was, even when I wasn't 100% Sure, I believed it. Just simply going, alright, here's my heart presented to this word. And so I'm gonna read you just a couple rapid fire words, or scriptures that my heart has gravitated has just gravitated to in different ways. And these have come to me in all different ways. I'm not gonna read them all is there's a, I've read a lot of a lot of different passages of Scripture, and even just different verses have stood out to me. But here's a couple. This is Psalms 90, verse 14, these will be in a variety of different translations. But this one says, Let the sunrise of your love and our dark night break through our clouded Dawn, again, only you can satisfy our hearts filling us with songs of joy to end to the end of our days, that one has been a favorite in the last like, you know, two weeks. I'm gonna say that one again. It's just good. And then I'll read the next verse after it says, Let the sunrise of your love in our dark night. It's been interesting the last several days, in the morning, early in the morning, I've just had this desire to, to get up and go walk outside. Ever since the Lord's beckoning, like, come, come walk with me outside. It's just been sweet. And that was one of the verses that I was just praying before the Lord in the morning is I would say, it was something sweet about knowing I'm up really early. And darkness has just passed. And so I could just it felt like I was participating in that word in that moment. And I I do try and go when I experienced scripture, and I read Scripture as much as I can. I want that to be a full bodied experience. My heart is engaged, my mind is engaged, my body is engaged. Where I'm like, I'm I'm allowing myself to feel that to be in it. Let the sunrise of your love in our dark night. My God in the same way that I'm looking around right now. And I'm seeing the beginning rays of the sun. Darkness has just gotten pushed back, the sun rose. And the night has ended. God I'm asking you, Lord to end the places that feels like darkness. In my own life. I'm asking you to push back the places that have been chaotic, and have been the spaces where I'm like, God, I can't see. I feel like I'm gonna stumble. So I love this. His breakthrough are clouded Don again, only you can satisfy our hearts, filling us with songs of joy to the end of our days. The next verse says, We've been overwhelmed with grief. Come now and overwhelm us with gladness, replace our years of trouble with decades of delight. Another verse that just, you know, I love Isaiah 48 I think there's been a lot of nature verses that have been striking to me right now in this season. Plus a 4040 Verse A NIV says The grass withers and the flowers fall but the Word of God endures forever. And honestly, like I said, the whole embodying thing. There's all these walks that I've just been doing with the Lord look, I pay attention to the grass that is dead I pay attention sometimes I'm grabbing like little leaves off of trees, and I'm crumbling those in my hand to for that to be a tactile feeling, where I go wow, like this blade of grass that I just grabbed in my hand. I can easily destroy this I can easily this this will easily fall apart and then it will just become you know, dirt you know Again, and it just it comes to an end. But then I'm reminded of like, Lord, the things that you've spoken your word of truth, your Whitten word, the promises that you've spoken everything, Lord that you've, you know, sent out your word to do, you will accomplish it, it will not come to an end, but it will actually endure forever. And there's this sense of grounding that comes from that this sense of stability, when a lot of things around us are crumbling, and there's a lot of chaos and we're like, I don't know what's gonna last. And I don't know what's gonna, you know, be fruitful, and I don't necessarily know what's going to be sustained. It is really really really stabilizing to know that God but your word, it will endure forever. I love Psalms 107 verse nine, ESV. He satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul, he fills with good things. I think that's, I've been kind of doing this rhythm of fasting lately. And I think that's maybe one verse that's part that probably struck me. Because of even just, that's that space and season that have been in on some days, is just knowing man God, like, my, my body is hungry right now. It desires food and nourishment. And in the same way that like, I know, like, okay, like, you know, I will get food again, like, I will have that and, and I'll be satisfied again. There's just been something that's just been a good reminder of knowing God, so will you satisfy me? And so you know, you will, you will feel our longing and our hungry souls. Okay, so the last passage that I'll actually touch on real fast is Psalms 121. And the whole thing is really good. I'm not going to read in this moment for the sake of time. But I do want to highlight these two things here. Verse three says that he will not let you stumble, the one who washes over you will not slumber. I love that. And then verse five, he says, The Lord Himself watches over you, the Lord stands beside you as your protective shade. The sun will not harm you by day nor the moon at night. Can I tell you that there have been some times that I've stepped outside because I'll do it frequently during the during the day just to take a break and talk with the Lord. And especially if it's super stupid, hot outside, and I come to this shady tree, I'll stand in that shade for a moment. And I'm not sure what you know, which came first whether it was having that experience of just, I just was became aware of like, Man, I just stepped in this shade. And this soul feels like the provision of God. And then now knowing this passage in the Lord and talking about the Lord being our protective shade, that him standing beside us and watching over us as our protective shade. I just feel very reminded of that in those moments that in the same way you and you cut when it's hot, and you come to a tree that's given off some shade, you want to stay there, no part of you wants to remove from that Blaze. There is where you want to be. And so in those moments, I remind myself of man just like the shade is is giving me it feels like it's giving me everything that I need right now in this moment. I don't want to leave from this place in the same way God is doing that right now in my life. He's he is not disconnected. He's not disregarding the heat and pressure that seems to be applied in my life right now. He is apply he's giving shade. He is sheltering me. And he's with me right now. And on a practical note, it just gives me another thing to thank the Lord for of like man God thank you for the provision of this tree. This is a random tangible we got to get out of like only thinking of provision in terms of money. Man I'm like in those ones like God you provided this tree here for me for others and I thank you for it I'm sitting underneath the shade of it and God in the same way that I'm that I'm being reminded of the provision that you have for me as I stand it underneath this tree guy, would you show me the other ways in which that I've forgotten or haven't recognized your provision, but it is there for me accessible? Not, you know only for some only for the free you know, it is it is for me. And I can I can be in it. I can stand in it. Receive from it. It's mine, you know, so I am done loading you with a bunch of different scripture and encouragement for you to go. You know what your appetite on and go and feast on. And again, even if you're like, Man, I'm tired. I trust that the Lord will work something in you. As you just sit before him be in his presence, he is truly able to do more exceedingly more than you could ever ask, think or imagine, or even have the capability of imagining. So be encouraged by that, wherever you're at right now. If you're hearing this message, you've listened to the entire episode. And for that I am deeply grateful. I hope this episode resonated with you and if it did help us out by sharing this episode, and leaving a review on Apple podcasts, and Spotify. Most importantly, reach out to let me know how you're engaging with this episode, and what topics you'd like to see covered in the future. You can connect with us on social media, or get in touch with me directly at Gabrielle at return to joy.com to share your heart. I'll see you in two weeks for a new episode.