Day 55 - Issue 22
Romans 8:38-39 NLT
And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life…indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.
When unwelcome events invade my life uninvited, I react in both fear and frustration. Fear, simply because I don’t like what I experience and can exercise little or no control over the eventual outcome, and frustration because it interrupts my view of my future as I’ve planned it. So much of life is lived within the narrow confines of my head, with little thought to the random nature of events. This feeling of control is ridiculous when I stop to consider the majority of events that lie beyond my control.
Terrorists turning motor vehicles into weapons, medical diagnosis or weather-related disasters – I’m not in control of any of those. How to make sense of God in all of this? It is holding on to a truth that we believe matters and endures with or without us. For example, after terrorist attacks, the general population regroup and hold vigils, while politicians and media remind us all that this is the price for democratic freedoms such as speech and movement.
While we take hold of Christ’s salvation message with anticipation that we will be shielded from the worst of life’s ravages, we learn that this salvation message comes with few guarantees this side of death. What we live with is a confidence that come what may, God’s rule and reign shall endure long after terrorism and other inexplicable disasters have disappeared. Yet, this is tough when I experience one such disaster while in my mortal state.
It then becomes a real battle within to hold on to my convictions. Emotions from self-pity, through resentment, to simple defeat disturb my psyche. Where the constitution of the USA speaks of self-evident truths, they are only self-evident for as long as people hold them to be so. History reveals how easily they are snuffed out by a political movement with a mind to rewrite them.
QUESTION: How strong is your conviction in God’s ability to sustain your well-being against apparently impossible odds?
PRAYER: Lord, I am grateful that when all else has passed away, your love will remain.
