When Nothing is Left

"When you pass through the waters, I am with you; when you pass through the streams, they will not overwhelm you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not harm you.  For I am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, your deliverer."  Isaiah 42:2-3

"I repeat, be strong and brave! Don't be afraid and don't panic, for I, the LORD your God, am with you in all you do."  Joshua 1:9

Cracking and crashing.  A roar in your ears that sounds like a freight train.  Loud bangs.  These are sounds I was imagining on a trip with friends to Greensburg, Kansas.   We had been there many years before with our kids, to see the world's largest hand dug well.  At that time it was a building that looked like this.

You climbed down the stairs into the well, and it was kind of a scary trip.  Not so now.  There is a new building there.  It looks like this:

This one encloses the upper entrance to the well and the steps are wide and easily used.  The building also has a museum both about the well and the events surrounding Friday, May 14, 2007.  On that day, the small town of Greensburg was decimated by an F-5 tornado.  The entire town, except for a few buildings was completely wiped off the map.

The winds during that storm went up to 205 miles per hour.  In a town with a population of 1,200, there were 961 homes and businesses destroyed.  Additionally, 216 had major damage and 307 had minor damage.  That's an amazing number for such a small town.  By the end of the clean-up, 800,000 cubic yards of debris was removed.  Mind boggling.  I can't even imagine the terror those people had that night.  

And now we all are watching the floods in Houston develop.  Unbelievable amount of rain.  I read somewhere there have already been 360+BILLION  gallons of rain dumped in the Houston area early on, and it continues to rain.   Massive flooding, displaced people, people lost.  We feel their desperation as we watch it unfold on tv.

As we look at those types of cataclysmic events, I can't help but compare the events in my life to those.  Comparatively, the "stuff" that happens in my life seems paltry.  And yet, the things that cause me grief in my own life can be paralyzing.  Sometimes, it feels like things in my life are spiraling out of control, ready to bring everything tumbling down in a big, useless, destroyed mess.  Are you with me?  Do you sometimes feel that way?  It's my sense of peace that is the victim in these situations.  Whether it is a relationship problem, a health problem, a work problem, or a money problem, it's my peace that is attacked.  It causes me to be upset, hopeless, and depressed.

Right now I am studying 'The Armor of God' by Priscilla Shirer.  If you have not done this study, you owe it to yourself to have a look at it .  The woman has a way of putting words together to make extremely impactful statements.  Here's one thing she says about the devastating events in our lives:

"Of all the things that the enemy seeks to steal, kill, and destroy in your life, peace is almost always at or near the top of his list.  He intentionally stirs up discord, division, disruption, and disturbance , both within you and around you.  He is the lord of chaos and confusion, using every opportunity to upset your sense of well being and stability. He wants you uneasy, unbalanced, filled with anxiety, worry, and turmoil. Lacking peace.  But there's more to it than that-because perhaps like no over attack, he knows that by nibbling away at your peace, he and his demonic  entourage can cause his brand of tension to fan out in  all directions, spreading out to your relationships, corroding them with disagreement and frustration.  Mark it down, whenever you feel an overriding sense of unrest or overwhelming distress in your relationships, the enemy is somewhere in the middle, stirring it up.  Anywhere peace is lacking, you can be sure he's at work."

Sound familiar? It's true.  Almost every disturbing event is a peace stealer.  Whether it is a climate event,  a relationship event, or a financial event, our peace is the thing that goes first .

 But there is one thing that is guaranteed to preserve that peace....through anything if we let it.  Instead of using words, I am going to use a picture.  This is picture I saw at the museum in Greensburg.  The writing on the back says this:

This  object was in our dining room in our buffet table.  We could not go in our dining room after the tornado because it was dangerously tipped into the basement.   After the volunteers demolished what  was left of our house we saw that they had graciously put it on our curb for us to keep.  Lorraine Raber came by and put the sign on it:

                                                               "When nothing is left but God, God is enough."

  

                                              

Wow! Does that tell the story of what we have in Christ?  When everything, EVERYTHING else is gone, He is there. Whether it be a relationship problem, an illness, not sure where the money is going to come from, 205 mph winds ...He is still there. We have that promise!    We can count on it....through anything.  Don't let your peace be stolen.  Count on Jesus to keep his word.  He will.

"God is our strong refuge; he is truly our helper in times of trouble. 2 For this reason we do not fear when the earth shakes, and the mountains tumble into the depths of the sea,  3 when its waves crash and foam, and the mountains shake before the surging sea." - Psalm 46: 1-3