There's Never Not More in God's Plans

There’s never not more is a phrase my precious friend Rose-Marie uses when talking about God’s plans, purposes and provisions. My high school English teacher would wince and wield her red pen over that phrase, but I’m convinced it’s one of the truest things ever spoken. How can a forbidden “double negative”, using two negative words in the same phrase relate to God’s purposes and add up to profound truth?

There’s never not more.

We’re entering the season of the liturgical year known as Ordinary Time that spans half the year from Pentecost to the beginning of Advent. After multiple seasons focused on the miraculous life of Jesus, a life that is anything but ordinary, what do we do with ordinary? What do we do with a season filled with days and weeks ordered one after another, sometimes to the point of monotony? Most of us don’t want monotony and we don’t want ordinary. Ordinary seems like less. We want more. We want extraordinary-the kind of life that is “immeasurably more than all we could ever ask or imagine.” Ephesians 3:20.

The things we’ve learned from the life of Christ during the first half of the year are the “more” we need to transform ordinary days into extraordinary ones.

Consider what God has done for us.

The God Who spoke the world into being and breathed life into people crafted in his own image, people who listened to a lie, turned from God, infected all creation with the deadly virus of sin and broke their communion with God–this God sent His own Son to these broken people in this broken world to demonstrate what real love is: selfless, sacrificial and sure.

Ponder the seasons of the liturgical year and what they teach us about God’s extravagance toward us. Each amazing provision is followed by another amazing provision.

Advent is a journey of yearning that culminates in the wonder and joy of Christmastide. Into a dark world Jesus, the Light of the World, is born.

Epiphany broadens that gift from tiny Bethlehem to the wider world, and we are flooded with hope. But that hope is tinged with the truth that it’s not just the world that is broken.

In Lent, we face the reality that we are broken, we are infected by sin. So broken, in fact, that we can’t fix or save ourselves. We need a savior.

The grief we feel during Lent’s 40 days, growing in intensity as Jesus makes his way through Gethsemane toward Golgotha and the garden tomb, explodes into unimaginable joy with his resurrection on Easter Day. And the season of Eastertide, when Jesus walks with, teaches and eats with his followers prepares them for Pentecost and the gift of the Holy Spirit.

The common themes in these seasons are preparation, celebration, and growth. And they are all part of God’s extraordinary plan to redeem and restore his people, to bring them back into an intimate, never-ending relationship with Himself.

Double negatives can be confusing because two negatives can cancel each other out and create a positive statement.

There’s never not more doesn’t just create a positive statement. It expresses the reality that with God and in his kingdom, all things are possible. (Matthew 19:26)

In the hands of a Mighty God, not double negatives but two opposing forces—justice and mercy—intersect at the Cross of Christ. Justice is a given because sin can’t go unpunished by a Holy God. But rather than bring the penalty down on the guilty, perfect justice is met with mercy–God the Father sacrifices God the Son to pay our insurmountable debt of sin. The offended One pays the debt of the offender.

Perfect justice and extravagant mercy don’t cancel each other out, they converge through the blood of Christ to satisfy God’s holy requirements with steadfast love and mercy. And that is extraordinary.

So how do these realities offer a way to transform ordinary days, challenging days, sad days, monotonous days?

My friend Rose-Marie is a prayer warrior. She would tell you that God has shown her over and again that there’s never not more when she prays believing God will answer. She’s an ordinary woman who trusts in an extraordinary God. She lives in joy that he has come and with the sure expectation that he will come again. She celebrates the many ways he has blessed his people and the ways he answers prayers, big and small. She grieves the brokenness in our world and lifts the broken pieces to the throne room of heaven. She’s in constant communication with her Father God in the name of Jesus the Son through the power of the Holy Spirit. She lives in vibrant relationship with the Holy Spirit, who is God in us.

Ordinary Time is an opportunity to offer to our extraordinary God our very ordinary days, and through an intimate relationship with the One who made us, the One who redeemed us and the One who, with amazing grace and infinite love, tells us there is never not more for us in his kingdom.

“He who did not spare his own Son but gave Him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” Romans 8:32

Consider a few extra resources:

Live perfectly imperfect

Willa Kane

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