The 5-Worded Thought

On days that are so cold and frozen stiff like the ones that tend to string through January, I find it very pleasant to think about things that are vibrant and warm and alive.

So one day when a Five-Worded-Thought sidled up to my mind, I gave it a silent shriek of delight and welcomed it right in. I held onto it, so it wouldn’t easily be able to go. 

In Indonesia, where my husband lived for five years, you always serve tea to company. Sweet, fragrant, scalding-hot tea. What you as a newcomer might not realize when you take that first boiling sip, however, is that the tea says something about your stay. It says, “Welcome! Obviously, you can’t handle drinking me quickly, so relax and stay awhile. We don’t want you to leave too fast.”

If that Five-Worded-Thought was visiting me in Indonesia, I would’ve made the hottest tea possible to ensure a lengthy duration of its stay.

I almost think you’re joining me in my mind by now. I hope so. I hope you’re making some hot tea to enjoy with that wonderful Thought and me... 

But how could you enjoy the Thought if I don’t tell you more about it? Let me try. It goes like this: 

God Is Alive In Me. (Pause and repeat, emphasizing each individual word.)

Sometimes the inside of me feels pretty dead. Alone. Shriveled and ugly. Have you ever felt that way? I hope not. But I’m going to guess that most of us have. But oh! -

I am desperate for that Five-Worded-Thought to stick around because it is the truth, coming from the very Word of God. Even on the worst days, if I go all the way down the spiraling staircase of my soul, right in the core of who I am, God is there. He is dwelling within me. He’s alive! He’s doing great! He is All-Power, All-Authority, All-Wisdom, All-Wonderful-GOD. I am full of wonder.

From a song he wrote, I can tell Mr Whittle was delighted by the thought of this Life inside of us when he looked at a pine cone. Those swirling, tough chips of woodiness held within each of them the potential for an entire seventy-foot tree. How could that be? How could something that looks so beautiful and yet so dead, become an actual living, growing tree? 

He also stopped in awe at a flower seed; in my imagination it will be a nasturtium. One of those tiny, roundish, wrinkly, pale specimens held within it life; life which has all potential to become bobbing green leaves and colorfully orange flowers! 

“As lives the flower within the seed

As in the cone, the tree

So praise the God of truth and grace!

His Spirit dwelleth in me.” -D. Whittle

So while I entertain this Five-Worded-Thought, I’m going to pop all of us a question: 

Since the most Living of living possibilities is inside me, what needs to happen for me to let His possibilities explode into all their potential within me?

If any wonderful Thoughts sidle up at your home beside my Question, I would be so delighted to get invited over. We could even make some tea.

P.S. You might want to check out Galatians 2:20, Colossians 3:3 and John 17:23.