oh! (light bulb)

Gen 1: 14-15
And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth." And it was so.

Do you know what I just realized. God made the stars for signs before he made people. He determined their course in the sky before we were made. He was already ready to point us to our Savior before we existed. That's how much He loves us. That's how much He's got our future under control.

Abraham, he had a lot of waiting to do, but he trusted God.

No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what He had promised. That is why his faith was "counted to him as righteousness." But the words "it was counted to him" were not for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.
Romans 4: 20-25

Let us be people of unwavering faith. Let us know:

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for wholeness and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me. When you seek me with all your heart, I will be found by you, declares the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.
Jeremiah 29: 11-14

becoming a faith gumby

I have a new job. And I am learning a thing or two about muscle tension and stretching. My boss' mascot is Gumby the claymation figure of a tv series from the 50's. While strength is important, he holds the opinion that the body is less susceptible to injury when the soft tissues are actually able to absorb energy and change lengths.

If he says to you "holy toledo, you're tight!" you know that you're in for a bit of stretching.

What I am learning is that the length and tension of muscles has a pretty big impact on the supporting frame, our skeletons, and that stretching the muscles can change, for the better, our posture, our body positioning, our pain.

Now, it's no secret really, that stretching is not so comfortable. It can be downright painful. However, it is a good and necessary pain that will prevent and perhaps reverse damage to the body. So I see that if I will not take care to stretch myself, either things will continue in the current direction, or I may have to hand myself over to be stretched.

My faith is sometimes like a tight muscle. And I can tell you that like the others, the stretching of my faith is often quite uncomfortable.  Once it becomes a little less tender, more supple, more willing to trust in one direction, I am often stretched in quite another direction... one in which I never knew I was so tight.

So as I am being stretched, I'm learning, and trusting that like physical stretching, this stretching of my faith is also beneficial. For God is good. And not nearly so smug as I am when others are at my mercy.