Smart Thoughts

       As I write this month’s Smart Thoughts, I am also thinking about and preparing for the funeral of Jerod Price. It is always a tragedy that has no explanation when one so young dies unexpectedly. It has been such a short time since Jerod survived a serious car accident only to die from medical problems that he has overcome most of his 30 years. I would like to share with you some of what I will have already shared with Jarod’s family and friends by the time you read this.

       A little boy was spending his Saturday morning playing in his sandbox. He had with him his box of cars and trucks, his plastic pail, and a shiny, red plastic shovel. In the process of creating roads and tunnels in the soft sand, he discovered a large rock in the middle of the sandbox.

       The boy dug around the rock, managing to dislodge it from the dirt. With no little bit of struggle, he pushed and nudged the rock across the sandbox by using his feet. (He was a very small boy and the rock was very large.) When the boy got the rock to the edge of the sandbox, however, he found that he couldn't roll it up and over the little wall. Determined, the little boy shoved, pushed, and pried, but every time he thought he had made some progress, the rock tipped and then fell back into the sandbox. The little boy grunted, struggled, pushed, & shoved; but his only reward was to have the rock roll back, smashing his chubby fingers. Finally he burst into tears of frustration.

       All this time the boy's father watched from his living room window as the drama unfolded. At the moment the tears fell, a large shadow fell across the boy and the sandbox. It was the boy's father.

       Gently but firmly he said, "Son, why didn't you use all the strength that you had available?

       Defeated, the boy sobbed back, "But I did, Daddy, I did! I used all the strength that I had!"

       "No, son," corrected the father kindly. "You didn't use all the strength you had. You didn't ask me."

       With that the father reached down, picked up the rock, and removed it from the sandbox.

       The message from the prophet Isaiah is that God overcomes if we just place our hope in our God who has great power and mighty strength, if we obediently and faithfully allow God to work in us and in our circumstances.

       What is God's deepest desire for you and me? The Psalmist expressed it in Psalm 147:10-11. "His pleasure is not in the strength of the horse, nor his delight in the legs of a man; [God does not delight is our displays of self saving strength] the Lord delights in those who fear him, who put their hope in his unfailing love." That word "fear," can be thought of as "an all-encompassing term for worship and obedience, the proper relationship to God." (The HarperCollins Study Bible) Another translations puts it this way, "the Lord takes pleasure in the faithful, who put their hope in his unfailing love."

       According to the words of this Psalm and the prophet Isaiah, God's deepest desire is for you and me to have that proper relationship with God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit that we may fully rely on the One who "brings out the starry host one by one, and calls them each by name." That we might trust in the Lord because of his great power and mighty strength.

      When we use all the strength we have, there is nothing we can’t overcome – finances, struggles with one another, crises that will come, losses of all kinds, natural disasters, circumstances that seem to have no solution...

      May we fully rely on our God of great power and mighty strength,

      Eddie