Mike Novotny - 3 Words That Will Change Your Life: The Secret to Experiencing the Joy of Gods Presence

We dont think that much of GOD.

That is our biggest problem. We might have plenty of problems, but this is the problem beneath the problems, the polluted spring that produces the water that keeps making us emotionally sick. The toxic seed that keeps producing poisonous fruit. The crippling fear of getting dumped by your boyfriend or downsized by your company or diagnosed by your doctor only exists because we dont think that much of GOD.

Im not being holier-than-thou, because this is my problem too. When an unplanned car repair sends me into an anxiety spiral or a flopped sermon leads to self-loathing on a Sunday night, my real issue is that I dont think much of GOD.

That problem is true in two different waysquantity and quality. We dont think that much of GOD because we dont think about him often enough (quantity). And we dont think that much of GOD because our thoughts about him are, frankly, pretty lame (quality).

A Picture of Your Biggest Problem?

Think of the times when your thoughts gravitate toward GOD. You might bring up his name when you say grace before a family dinner. Or maybe you talk to GOD as you stare at your bedroom ceiling at night. You might mention GOD at a church or in a hospital waiting room.

Our brains make a synaptic connection between certain places (dinner tables, bedsides, churches) and the presence of GOD. But heres the issuewe might only spend 1 percent of our week in those places. Which means we dont think of GOD 99 percent of the time.

The quantity of that percentage is a problem.

What is more, even when you are thinking about GOD, you probably dont think that much of GOD. Your thoughts of him might be as thrilling as getting a case a rice cakes for your birthday.

For example, have you ever mindlessly talked to GOD before a meal, saying all the right words but having a heart that is far from floored at the fact that GOD is with you?

My family often says a dinner prayer that starts, Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest, which should blow our minds. Jesus is our guest?! The Lord himself is showing up for pesto ravioli?! GOD is here?! But sadly, our minds are rarely blown by the miracle. Instead we say, Pass the Parmesan a mere 0.002 seconds after Amen, which calls into serious question whether any of us were actually thinking about GOD at all.

Ever been there?

Or have you ever found yourself singing about GODs love, mercy, and salvation, yet paying more attention to the pitch of the tone-deaf worshiper behind you or the dry scalp of the gentleman ahead of you or the typo on the projector screen in front of you?

Or has some well-meaning Christian ever tried to bring healing to your hurting soul with the reminder, But GOD is here, and you brushed it off like GOD was no more than a nursing intern and you needed to speak to a real doctor?

If so, welcome to the club. Like me, you are a card-carrying member of the Dont Think That Much of GOD society. In both quantity and quality, it is frighteningly easy to think little of GOD.

Youre Killin Me, Smalls god

But thinking so little of GOD is killing us.

I choose the word killing carefully. Because death, from a biblical perspective, is separation from life, and life is what you get to enjoy when you think much of GOD.

Let me unpack that last sentence.

Life, in the Bibles terms, is what you experience when you are with GOD. When you receive what Jesus came to give, that massive GOD-shaped hole in your heart is filled with never-ending love, continual community, 24/7 purpose, guaranteed acceptance, enduring happiness, and all the other stuff your soul constantly craves. Find GOD and you have found life.

To put it more simply, the only biblical way to live is to believe GOD is here!

Death Defined

Think of it like this picture: The larger circle is GOD as he actually isglorious, satisfying, enough. The smaller circle is GOD as you think of him. And the space in between these two circles is death.

Death is the feeling that your current life is not enough. Or the fear that you will lose the thing you need to survive. Or the worry that youll end up without the one person who makes life worth living. Discontentment lives in the space between the circles, along with its whining roommates, hopelessness and dissatisfaction.

The less we think of GOD, the more painful our daily death.

There is only one solution that will satisfy your soulto think much of GOD.

Which is why we need to fully grasp what the name of GOD actually means.

Nothing Matters More Than GODs Name

Whats in a name?

Shakespeare tried to answer that question with his famous lines about the roses in Romeos garden. When it comes to someones name, what matter more than the sounds your mouth makes are the thoughts your mind thinks.

Because a name is what you think about when you think about that name.

Just ask my fifth-grade friends. Back in the early 90s, I went to school with twin sisters who every boy thought were drop-dead cute. None of us eleven-year-olds knew a thing about love, romance, or relationships, but we knew the names of those girls. We brought up their names during second recess. We circled their names in our yearbooks. We repeated their names at our sleepovers. In fact, I remember mentioning their names in my bedtime prayers!