Everlasting Power

About a year ago, we almost lost my younger sister. About a month ago, we almost lost my brother. This is not to say look at how great we are! But rather, that the amount of panic, grief, frustration, and tears in those moments were only possible to get through by the grace, power, and strength of God.

Often times, in the midst of the storms, we doubt His power. We question His ability. Our circumstances DO NOT change or lessen His power or ability. Life will not always be easy and we are not promised that it will be, especially as a follower of Christ and Child of God. Job went through loss after loss and God allowed it. Satan questioned Job's faith due to his seemingly perfect living conditions. But throughout the entirety of Job, the devil never had all the power. God still restricted Satan and could have easily stepped in and stopped the losses and tragedies. But, sometimes we have to wrestle to grow. Sometimes we need to lose what we thought really mattered to learn Who really does matter. Sometimes we have to experience the climb up the mountain and the wind in the valleys, rather than just the joy at the peak. By His power in us, we can go through the difficulties of life, and come out closer to Him. In those moments, we can think, "if it wasn't cancer, then maybe He could have. If it didn't happen this way, then maybe He could have..." We think that God's inaction is a sign of inability, but His "inaction" is actually Him telling us what He says in Isaiah:

"'For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are my ways your ways,' declares the Lord, 'As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your thoughts and my thoughts than your thoughts.'"

-Isaiah 55:8-9

It's not that He isn't able or isn't powerful enough. Our circumstances do not limit God. The question is not is He able? It should be will He? And if not, we must have the response "Thy will be done." If that is not our response or something similar when things don't go our way, we struggle with trusting and believing His power, ability, and Him. Your way does not mean THE way. We often have an attitude that if it doesn't go this way, if that person isn't healed, if I don't get this or that, the think we wanted was too big. That's not it! It's not that it was too big for Him, it's that there's a bigger plan working that's too big for YOU to understand. His power is not based on giving us what we want, the fact that He doesn't always give us what we want, but rather what we need shows His power. If a parent always gave their child what they wanted, the child would never see the parent as an authority, but a friend. While Jesus is our Friend, He is also the Authority. In the difficult and easy moments, I've been able to see His power in, through, and after the moments. When we almost lost my siblings, His power was in the ability to get through everyday. His power was seen in the people who rallied around us. His power was shown by us getting through both those situations. His power was in the little moments that took place within those big moments. There were many questions going through the moments, but by God's grace and power within each of us, we held tightly to our Anchor and we wrestled and we hurt, but we saw Him, all of Him in those moments. His power, grace, love, mercy, protection, providence, and the list goes on. To think you have influence on His power and ability is to think very highly of yourself. You do not have the power, your circumstances do not have the power to affect His power.

One of my favorite phrases I remind myself of is "I surrender my wants to His will." Meaning I give up what I want and I give it to You and Your will. Here are my wants, take them, and do with them as You see fit. It took me a while to get there, surrender isn't easy. To get there is to say, I value His will more than my wants. I know His way is better than my way. When you think of yourself less and more of Him, you're reminded how small you are and how big He is. That there is a bigger plan in store for you than you can even imagine.

One of the verses I have on my mirror reminds me of this daily surrender I must have:

"'He MUST increase, but I MUST decrease.'"- John 3:30