A devotion written 18 years ago, reprinted 11 years ago… and really, really needed again today!

Everything towers over us… but God powers over everything. Trust his strength and love for you.

“…Abraham believed in the God who brings the dead back to life and who brings into existence what didn’t exist before.” Romans 4:17

I need a God who takes death as a trade-in on life.

There is little need in my life for a god who simply re-arranges what’s already there…a god who spray paints broken parts to cover the cracks and then declare them workable. I don’t need a god who can cosmetically straighten my nose or give me more hair or make age spots disappear.

Oh no! My God has to be able to take dead things and breathe life back into them! He must have the ability to make quality stuff out of thin air…put something on the shelf that didn’t exist before He went to work.

My God must be able to take dead emotions and bring life, expectancy and vitality to them. He must be capable of taking dead relationships…ones that haven’t simply quit working well, but have been buried for years…and reconnect the synapse of neural responses so that they work again. He must be able to take dead dreams and desires and not only bring them back to mind and heart, but fulfill them in the process.

Life can be too tragic…too long…too disappointing…too confusing and too filled with my own blunders and inaptitude to settle for any other god than the One who can make all things new, and who speaks of tomorrow as if it were yesterday and who can create real and satisfying life out of brokenness, emptiness and death.

Aren’t you glad this week that such a God is bigger than the chaos around you and closer than the fear and longings in your heart?