Just some early morning thoughts from me to you…

“For this is what the Lord says—
He who created the heavens, He is God;
He who fashioned and made the earth, He founded it;
He did not create it to be empty, but formed it to be inhabited—He says:   “I am the Lord, and there is no other.” Isaiah 45: 18 (NIV)

Tough gig for a lot of us these days.

Maybe for all of us.

Uncertain about what’s coming next, but knowing full well something is just around the bend.

While trying to hold it together and deal with now.

We don’t know the next steps in our career, but we know they’ll be different.

A loved one is facing an illness you hoped you’d never hear the word for again. But instead, now you’re the encourager.

A loved one is forever lost.

A child is struggling to find their way, and short of holding them in your arms twenty-four hours a day, you don’t know what to do.

Then we hear someone make the statement—“God won’t give us more than we can handle.” Overwhelmed and frustrated hearing that, we want to say…but, instead, we stay silent.

The view of the world around us is not a whole lot better. Actually it may be a whole lot worse.

Shootings at schools, hospitals and businesses, and it almost seems regularly on the streets in some of our larger cities. People killed and buildings laid flat in the Ukraine for no reason but evil.

Suffering through an economic downturn, rising gas prices and inflation, and more—all having a depressing impact near and beyond.

Then Isaiah’s words echo through the centuries to today, and we hear God’s voice saying—“I am the Lord, and there is no other.”

And the question for us is—Is He our Lord?

In the midst of the stuff in our lives. In the turmoil around us in the world.

Do we seek His way for our lives?

Do we allow Him in?

Is He number 1 or number 10, number 40? Or is He even less important than that in our lives?

Is He the center, and the right and left of our lives?

Is He in the lives of our family, friends, and in the lives others we know in our communities, state and nation?

Is our identity defined by our time spent with Him? Or not.

And have we turned away from Him, or are we turning toward Him?

The correct statement which should have been made is this—

“God won’t give us more than He and we can handle together.”

Which would require that we let Him into our lives.

Maybe at number 1.

Just a thought for some of our days—to go through them with Him.

In His Name–Scott