When God is All In All and With Us All
When God is All,
in All and with us All,
the very thought of His promise
is enough to modify the experience
of the so-very-not-all times.
“You say that all the time!”
“I’ve given it all I’ve got.”
“All you ever do is complain.”
“That’s all I can eat, thanks.”
That’s our word (and Word) today…
All.
When we make comments like the quotes above, do we really mean “all?”
My sister-in-law told me, “You always do that!”
meaning I always sewed my zippers in backwards.
Did she really mean what she said? Because technically it wasn’t true.
Or does 20% of the time make a mistake seem like all the time?
What about if it’s a good thing?
Our minister once noted, “All I ever see you do is work.”
Did he really mean he never saw me chat with anyone?
Never sit and listen in a church service?
(Yes, my answer to social crowds is to help get the food ready or wash dishes, because I don’t have to use my brain to engage in that work. Being social is hard brain work. And, luckily, or he wouldn’t have been a minister, his was the opposite. He loved to work his way around the entire gathering, visiting, touching bases and being an encourager.)
So if we throw the word “all” around like that
not really meaning all,
does the Bible mean “all” when it says “all?”
Because that word is used “all the time” in “all kinds of verses.”
Love the Lord your God
with all your heart
and with all your soul and
with all your mind
and with all your strength.
The Lord is near to all who call on him,
to all who call on him in truth.
and this amazing promise…
And God is able to bless you abundantly,
so that in all things at all times,
having all that you need,
you will abound in every good work.
All things at All times
having all we need
so we can abound in all good works.
Can you even?
How are we supposed to interpret that?
(Especially a glass-half-empty kind of person.)
Because face it, if God is able, and we know He is, He sure isn’t doing it all the time in all we need.
Why am I having this so-very-not-All week,
when every day something happens to take the smile from my heart?
When the people around me don’t have all they need to do all they should?
Now may the Lord of peace himself
give you peace at all times
and in every way.
The Lord be with all of you.
Peace at all times.
Peace in every way,
He will not only be with me in my journey to peace, He is with all of us in all of our journeys.
And that is the way to peace at all times, in all ways.
Realize in the midst of a so-very-not-All kind of week that it’s a part of life, it’s temporary.
Because we have the choice to be with Him, before the bad times, after the bad times,
but most of all,
through the bad times.
It’s a great comfort to stop and think, while you feel the stress and tension of the moment, that “this too shall pass.” And simply taking your mind to that place of God in those times has the ability to bring calm. Because we know when the moment is over, when the stress lessens, we will have a chance to deep-dive into His Word and recover and reinforce the peace we didn’t feel in the battle.
And that is all we need to modify the stressful moments while living them.
