“Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance: behold, he taketh up the isles as a very little thing.” Isaiah 40:15

Our God Is Mighty

Combine the whole world, with all of its different countries that together contain billions of people, all of its kingdoms and governments and the leaders who run them. Take their people, their weapons, their resources and their most clever plans and join them in opposition to our God. They stand small and completely unintimidating, literally compared to one drop from a bucket full of water. They make about as much of a difference as the dust that accumulates on a scale – so insignificant that nobody bothers to wipe it off before weighing anything.

I have grown up hearing phrases like, “God is mighty” and “God is powerful” over and over again. I’ve agreed with those statements and I’ve repeated them – especially when someone I know is facing a particularly hard circumstance. I’ve genuinely meant and believed it with all of my heart … and I’ve promptly forgotten it when I stared my challenges in the face.  As soon as the odds seem stacked against me or my relationships don’t prove to be as sincere as I had hoped, I shift my eyes off of what I know to be true and onto what I feel to be true: “I have to take care of myself.”

A feeling of self-sufficiency rises up inside of me. I become determined to prove to myself and anyone who is watching that I can handle this.  I know God is there, and I’m not asking him to go away and let me figure it out by myself, but I’m not asking him for his help either. And as I stare at a verse that proves how completely capable my God is, I wonder why I don’t run to Him every single time. In His sight, my problems really aren’t problems at all. It’s not that he doesn’t care about them, just that He isn’t worried about them because of how in control he is.

Are We Proclaiming It?

How often do you find yourself living as though you serve a strong and powerful God? When life gets hard and people let you down, do you roll up your sleeves and set out to prove that you’re tough and unbreakable, or do you acknowledge your weakness and run to the One whose strength and abilities never fail?

Our response to difficulties will always preach a louder message than the words we speak from our mouths. People watch carefully and they take note of whether or not we’re actually convinced of what we say. Unfortunately, we often translate that to mean that we have to fake our peace, which never lasts very long. Thankfully, God tells us exactly how to have real peace – it comes from trusting him, which comes from knowing him. 

“Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.” Isaiah 26:3

~Charity Roberts