TobyMac’s words filled my car as I drove down the road: “Everywhere I turn is a reminder…I see You in everything, all day.”
I had heard those same words countless times before, but for some reason, they hit home with me this time.
All we really have to do to see God is just look around. He’s everywhere and in everything. It’s easy to forget about Him in the hubbub of everyday, first-world life. Sometimes we need to just take a few moments to do a mental inventory of God and His grace.
Life is certainly not perfect, and there are many awful things we can focus on (as I write this, the Coronavirus is ravaging the world), but we can just as easily look at all the ways God has blessed us.
Speaking of the first world, in our enclosed little bubbles we forget that billions of people live in poverty in other parts of the world.
The things we take for granted—like clean water, nutritious food, a sturdy roof over our heads, a steady job, and a car to take us to that job—are all parts of life that vast numbers of people do without every day.
Just owning a car makes us among the wealthiest people on the planet. Can you imagine that?
We may think we have it rough when our old car is giving us fits, but it is actually a luxury item that billions of people don’t have access to.
Think about the ability to walk to the sink and move a handle, allowing fresh, cool water to pour into a clean glass for your enjoyment. God blessed you with that today.
You could have been born in a third-world country where you had to walk miles to find the closest water, then be forced to share it with livestock. It could be filthy and diseased, but it’s all you have.
Everyone, or nearly everyone, reading this has never experienced that kind of poverty—and likely never will. We really can’t imagine what that must feel like as we live in our climate-controlled houses with our climate-controlled cars sitting out in the driveway.
God didn’t have to bless us with these creature comforts, but He did. For that, we can be thankful every day. These things serve as a reminder of who He is and what He’s done for us.
Just having the freedom to walk outside and see the sky, the trees, and the rest of nature is a gift as well. Many people don’t have this opportunity for one reason or another.
People who are homebound, or incarcerated, or trapped in human slavery don’t have this freedom. I can get up right now from my chair and step outside and enjoy a taste of God’s goodness on this beautiful spring morning. Not everyone can.
The point is that there are signs of God’s goodness and grace wherever we look. We don’t have to search very long to find evidence that he’s blessed us in awesome ways.
We can take heart in the fact that He cares enough about us to show His love in these ways.
You may be saying to yourself, Well, what about those people who ARE living in poverty across the world? They don’t have these things to be thankful for. They don’t have a reason to acknowledge God.
No matter what situation you, I, or anyone else find ourselves in, God has never forgotten about us.
Just remember Joseph’s story in Genesis. He was sold into slavery by his brothers and falsely thrown into prison later on. He spent years locked up before his chance came to be free.
Had God forgotten him? No. God works out all things in His own time. He was working behind the scenes while Joseph waited patiently in prison. Joseph knew God’s goodness and that He would not forget about him.
In time he was freed and eventually became the number two man in Egypt, second only to Pharaoh himself.
The key is remembering that God is good, He’s everywhere, and He has a plan for you.
Take notice of Him in the small things each day. It will do wonders for your mood, plus it will help draw you closer to God.
And that’s what it’s really all about, isn’t it?
However, in Genesis perhaps the most powerful image of God as a Judge is found in the account of the great flood. God sees that man has a penchant for wickedness, so He says, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them” (6:7). After reading the story of the flood I vaguely remember wondering how God could kill all of the living creatures on the earth. That seemed so mean and cruel to my young mind.
Along Bumpy Roads 