"Is anything too hard for me?"

Hey, Y'all,

Greetings from "The Pearl Of The Desert" NAF El Centro, part-time home of the Blue Angels (who happen to be in town and practicing)--you know, sometimes I really, really love this job :-).

I actually ran across today's RST several weeks ago and saved it 'cause it literally jumped out of the page at me--for some reason it's been rattling around my brain since last night:

"I am the LORD, the God of all mankind.
Is anything too hard for me?"
Jeremiah 32:27

The context was kind of difficult for Israel--you'll recall Jeremiah wasn't exactly a "happy-happy-joy-joy" prophet--maybe that's part of why this text leapt out at me. As we've often discussed in men's group (and at church in general): God is God--I am (very much) not. I don't have all the facts; I am incapable of seeing the big picture (not to mention the really big picture)--so why do I worry when I have apparently suffered a setback?

Did not Christ Himself promise to meet all my needs and never leave me nor forsake me (in innumerable Old and New Testament passages)? Am I not promised His comfort and care (and ultimate triumph) as I am passing through the deep waters and fires of this life? (see Isaiah 43:2 among other places in, again, the New and Old Testaments). Repeatedly Jeremiah himself records God's reassurance--29:11 ring a bell? "I have plans for you...to give you hope and a future." Paul and James remind us that ALL things work to our benefit when He is allowed to show us how.

A couple of quotes of Ellen White's spring to mind where she joins the chorus of (also-innumerable) more-contemporary Christian writers who reiterate the promise: Our heavenly Father has a thousand ways to provide for us of which we know nothing; We will someday look over our lives and see that moments we experienced as great disappointments were in fact, unbeknownst to us, moments of great blessing. No wonder David couldn't help but exclaim: "Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits..."

"I am the LORD, the God of all mankind.

Is anything too hard for me?"

You've been prayed for today...