Everything

Heartache and happiness, love, inustices, success, atrocity, all the things that make up a life and that experience comes from, the hard stuff:  God is in it all.  I watched the sun come up over an Arizona mountain, watched it set behind mountains on the other side of the valley.  He was there from before I arrived, all through the day and all through the desert sands the sun passed over, til the sun sank on the other side of the mountains.  And He was there after the darkness embraced the land that men walk upon.  God was there, and He is here. 

I strive to live out my dreams.  Sometimes I quit on them because they are just out of reach or do not happen the way I envisioned.   I quit on people because they do not turn into the hard stuff.  I have been quit on, sometimes, and have desired to disappear into the landscape, to disappear from my failures.  But I can never disappear from God.  He is everywhere.  He is in everything, even when I cannot feel Him or see Him.

I remember being in a place where I was living in my passion, knowing God, walking with Him everyday, making Him known.  It was a sunny day, and all was right with the world from my perspective.  God's Spirit filled my heart, and I spoke and sang of His faithfulness.  Now it is a cloudy day, and I have been living in the shadow of things that have discouraged me.  The passion which drove me has been pushed down.  I have turned away from walking daily with God, and have instead, leaned on what I know and understand in my physical, finite world. I have not sang the song He put inside me for a long time. But He is still here.  He still whispers His love and mercy to me, still upholds me, takes care of me.  He was with me before I called upon Him, and heard my plea for forgiveness and my confession.  He was with me when I was performing what I was born to do.  He saw my discouragement.  He never left me in the depths of depression, even when I would not acknowledge Him.  He is everywhere, He is in everything. 

When I was young, the world was at my fingertips.  I thought I was invincible, and moved freely in and out of what I felt I should be and do.  Now, even when the world has lost its luster, when the freedom America has so ungratefully enjoyed is being stolen away piece by piece, in the middle of my restlessness, the possibility of peace, His whispers of grace still haunt my soul.  I look to the future for my children and am not encouraged as I was when I was young.  I can see the dark clouds of tyrrany enveloping this great land, this great idea that has molded me, sculpted me, and I have lost heart.  But even in this darkness, when my loved ones are reciting the montras of darkness and warning me to be careful what I say-and in the land of the free!!!  I have wandered away from God in my confusion, in my frustration, in my hatred of this tyranny that is so quickly imposing its corosion upon the institutions of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  But He has not wandered away from me.

I realize that nothing matters, not success, not freedom, not even being an American citizen matters as much as continuing, determined, resolved to walk with God daily.  All the possibilities of life do not have a chance without Him.  He is in everything, the good, the bad, the indifferent.  He is everything.  All I can do is continue to cry out to Him, and to walk in the light of His instruction and love.  I know that when the sun sets on my days, there is a loving and just God waiting for me on the other side of the mountains.  What I have done, ill or pleasing, God will give me justice. And, He has even given me a sacrifice for my sin, His very own Son, Jesus Christ, Who takes away the sin of the world.  I have been very, very lonely.  But I have, indeed, never been alone.

1 John 2:17

Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB)

¹⁷ And the world with its lust is passing away,^(A) but the one who does God’s will^(B) remains forever.