Often in our culture and especially in the Western church, we tend to describe God in abstract terms and with intangible qualities, and can even find ourselves desiring information about God rather than a testimony about our relationship with Him.
But the Lord is real and moving around us in ways we can know with our senses. He is speaking and revealing Himself to you in a unique way, and there are concrete truths about God that you have a personal witness to.
So today, ask yourself, who has God been to you? What concrete descriptions about God are true and tangible to you? It’s these qualities and truths that unlock the potential for firm foundations in your journey with Jesus and your identity in Him.
New episodes on Wednesdays! Bi-weekly!
Thanks for subscribing and leaving a review! Please feel free to share with your family and friends.
Often in our culture and especially in the Western church, we tend to describe God in abstract terms and with intangible qualities, and can even find ourselves desiring information about God rather than a testimony about our relationship with Him.
But the Lord is real and moving around us in ways we can know with our senses. He is speaking and revealing Himself to you in a unique way, and there are concrete truths about God that you have a personal witness to.
So today, ask yourself, who has God been to you? What concrete descriptions about God are true and tangible to you? It’s these qualities and truths that unlock the potential for firm foundations in your journey with Jesus and your identity in Him.
New episodes on Wednesdays! Bi-weekly!
Thanks for subscribing and leaving a review! Please feel free to share with your family and friends.
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 was Beloved's. I am really glad to be with you. And I'm coming right now just extremely grateful. I have got to lead out with that. This episode I wanted to talk about who do you say God is. But before we get into that, I've got to tell you that I feel extremely grateful right now. I earlier today, this morning, I popped into the very tail end of a event. And I had the opportunity to have a very raw and tenderly honest conversation with the Mayor of the City of Live Oak. And she shared so much vulnerable wisdom that I felt deeply privileged to be on the receiving end of and I had no clue that the Mayor of the City of live over the last 12 years was a black woman. And one thing that was really incredible from the conversation was, she didn't even ask me what I did for a living until the very end of our conversation, we talked for almost an hour. And she was just sharing from her experiences of triumph and pain. And I'm soaking it all in tears coming down my eyes. And I'm like this This woman is, she doesn't even realize how much of an encouragement she's been to me. And I just felt very seen, I was really struck by the strength that I saw in her. Because I know she's had pushback, I know that she has experienced people saying blatantly to her face. And suddenly in the background, you don't belong here. But yet she walked with this deep reverence this strength that would that would say the very opposite of that. I feel like the reason why she walked and carried the way herself the way she did, was because of who her parents were for her. The stories they told her the things that they said about her and about what the Word of God says about her and who God wants to be for her life. And I, I saw that she was standing on a firm foundation. And I was really encouraged by it. And I don't think it's disconnected from what I'm wanting to talk about today. Around. Who do you say God is? I'm wanting to have a conversation about like, how do you describe him? When you sit back and you're, and you're silently meditating upon the Lord, and who he is? What words come to mind? What is your soul? What? What's been etched upon your soul? See, we often tend to describe God in very abstract terms. And I'm making a generality here, this is a broad generalities, not everybody, but there is this very, there can often be this very abstract way of describing God right? With intangible qualities and ideas or concepts that we can only truly know when our intellect I was reading this article not too long ago was a little bit of a while back ThoughtBot was speaking to how in the West we have this obsession with information over relationship. You see, he was saying we want a description of God, not a testimony, found only in relationship, versus the Eastern lens of describing God in concrete terms. So tangible terms, qualities and characteristics, things we can know through our senses. Things that we can observe and touch and can only claim if we've experienced the truth of it. Abstract descriptions of God would be God is love omnipotent, good. Concrete descriptions of God would be things like the Lord is my shepherd. The Lord is my is our provider, our deliverer. But ultimately, what caught my intention and inspired this desire to have a conversation about who do you say God is is the truth that it does matter how we describe God. It does matter, that we move from just descriptions of God, to a testimony that's found only in relationship. I want to spend the rest of this conversation looking at some scripture and then pointing to some practical exercises. The first one is Psalms 18, two in the NLT version. The psalmist says, The Lord is my rock, man. I fortress and my Savior. My God is my rock in whom I find protection. He is my shield the power that saves me and my place of safety. And do you see that my rock, my fortress, my Savior, these are all things that the Psalm has could see. These are true things expressed in a vivid picture. And then you have Psalms 121, five through six and the NLT version. psalmist 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. The Lord keeps you from all harm and watches over your life. The Lord keeps watch over you as you come and go both now and forever. I want to read that one more time it 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. The Lord keeps you from all harm and watches over your life the Lord keeps watch over you as you come and go both now and forever. Who can resonate with this word? The Lord Himself stands beside you as your protective shade who can resonate with that? Can you resonate with that truly ask yourself that question. Because I think only those who know what it feels like to walk through deserts can truly resonate with that. They felt the scorn of heat on their backs. Knowing that feeling of when you're so dehydrated, you stop sweating. And the feeling to stumble upon the closest bush or tree and experience the visceral bodily relief found in coming to shade. Think about that this is this is what makes exp experiencing the Word of God. So Rich is going God I want to experience you as my protective shade. I want to know you intimately as my protective shade. I want to know the truth that you watch over me not just in my intellect but in my heart and in my body. Let that seep in deeper. I want that to be a testimony I can claim that I can anchor myself to so that way no matter what experience is happening to me in this earth, no matter what I'm facing I can testify to that to be true. I can speak that over myself. I can pass that story down to my family. I can pass down that that truth and that wisdom of look at who God is for us look at who God was for me and will be for you. I had this really funny experience. Like I resonate with this song because I had a funny experience in Arizona years ago. I was working for I was doing marketing work for Chick fil A and I was out in Phoenix to train some other marketing directors and I I really wanted to see cactus like I really want it I heard you know you could see cactuses that are taller than you and I'm like what where does crazy installment I want to see a cactus that's taller than me. And so I had finished doing some different trainings. And it was my last day in Phoenix and I'm gonna go on a walk and I'm a sea of some cactus. I was a little crazy. I realized this now, Tempe is a beautiful city and whenever I'm in an environment where I can actually walk around and I don't have to drive around everywhere. I get excited about that and it's refreshing so like I'm a walk to go to this, you know, botanical garden area. I'm assuming some cactus and so I started walking and like I said I had my water inside of my bag. It was super cold. I'm thinking I'm good. Five minutes into the walk. I reach over grab my water and it is scorching hot like I'm talking my water bottle is crazy hot and I'm like I don't even want to drink this water. Put it back in my bag. I keep moving I'm like I'll be fine but I was wrong. I did not know and prepared me for the dry heat. That is Arizona. Basically I get to a point to where I cannot find this Botanical Gardens area. I should probably call them Uber but the determined part of me the Gabriella does not feel that will succeed in what she set out to do is like I'm a fine this this Botanical Gardens place but I came to this little bush and it provided this like this deep relief reading Psalms 121. And it talking about the Lord being our shade. This protective shade of going the Psalm as is trying to speak to something really real here. He's saying something that could be tangibly felt, that could be tangibly witnessed. That testimony could be given about his speaking something that could be experienced, even in the body. That feeling you feel. When you're so hot, there seems to be no place for shade, there seems to be no covering, all you feel is heat, and then to come to a bush, little bitty tree, that sheltering your body just enough to where your your surface temperature decreased. And you feel that relief. That's who the Lord is. That's who that's who the psalmist is describing the Lord to be. Not too long ago, maybe last year, sometime I was, I remember I was taking a little walk around our neighborhood. And I told the Lord, I wanted to experience gratitude, not just give it. And as I was walking and spending some time with the Lord and praying, I, it was really hot outside at the time, you know, I guess I have a thing for that. And I stopped, I just happened to pass by this tree. And he recognized until after I passed by it, but I'm walking, and then all of a sudden, I just experienced this size of satisfaction. And then I and then I recognize, oh, that tree was given a whole lot of shade. I think I think it may feel like 10 degrees lighter underneath that tree. And so I went back, and I stood underneath that tree for a moment. And I thought to myself, God, right now I'm experiencing your provision. And I just sat in that for a moment, and just experienced gratitude for the Lord as my provider. There's countless testimonies I can give to that finance, about how he's been that financially. He's been that in countless ways. But in that moment, I was realizing, wow, once again, this is what it's like, this is what it feels like, for God to provide when you have a need. And for the Lord to meet it. I walked right through provision. And I was just grateful for that. The fact that in that moment, I knew to return back to it and recognize it as the Lord's provision and sit there in it for a moment. The Lord is my comforter is another description of God that has mattered greatly to me. Specifically, in 2021, there was some back to back deaths in my family, our hard to navigate through and after my god brother passed, I had this sudden urge to, you know, redecorate my bedroom, and specifically was like, I want new bedsheets. I want different pictures hanging up around the room. So I went on this journey around a couple of different department stores and places like looking for the perfect comforter. I had a specific budget of like, okay, this is about how much I want to spend on a comforter. After I had finally purchased the comforter. I had got everything set up. And then I reached into my bag, because I remembered in my bag, someone, a part of the community that I fellowship with or worship had put a little bit of money in my bag. And I just felt led to to not look at it just yet. And so after setting up my bedroom, I reached into my bag to pull out that money. And to my surprise, I realized what I had done. And I realized what God had just done. For wine, I realized that I was searching for comfort. Very specifically intangibly in the form of a comforter. I was literally searching for a comforter. And as I opened the, as I spread the money out to count it, I realized that the body of Christ, the physical body of Christ had financed my comforter. And God was God is so good. And he had so much desire and he has so much desire to comfort me that he gave me a tangible representation. So that every night I would curl up in this comforter, and I would have the reminder of the fact that the Lord truly is my comforter. I literally I have a literal reminder every day that the Lord is my comforter There's been moments after that season in 2021, of deeply grieving our days where I still get in my bed and I, and I put that comfort over me. And I say, remember, Gabrielle, this is how intentional God is with you. These aren't philosophical terms, these aren't superficial beliefs or things about God that have no weight, or no merit to them. These are concrete truths, that you have a personal witness and testimony of the Lord is your comforter. And so now, I wrap myself in that blanket. And I'm there and I remember and it becomes my literal resistance against discouragement, my literal resistance, so I, I invite you to find concrete descriptions for God that are true, intangible for you, and that are, of course, present in the Word of God. Our hope for people that would listen to this podcast would be that listening would reveal pathways to unlock getting the healing power of connection, so that you can see your relationships and the world around you transformed from fractured into flourishing. But that can't happen without inviting other people from different lived experiences, and backgrounds to the table. So I'm really excited about the fact that in the future, we're going to be having more guests on the show. So stay tuned and be on the lookout for that. I cannot wait. 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 returning to joy.com to share your heart. I'll see you in two weeks for a new episode.