January 29, 2010 - Isaiah 65:24

I've been sick for a few days now. Just a lousy, rotten cold, but you all know how miserable they can be, especially the not being able to breathe part. I was trying to tough it out, but finally gave in on Wednesday and came home sick, then stayed home yesterday to try and kick this thing. Today I feel much better, though not completely over the cold.

Yeah, yeah, you're thinking...what does this have to do Isaiah 65:24?

Ok, here's the verse: "Before they call I will answer, while they are yet speaking I will hear."

So, yesterday I was wandering around the house looking for the Mucinex. I thought I still had some from when Chip was so congested, and I must have looked in same few places easily 3 or 4 times each. Looked in the medicine drawer, looked in the medicine cabinet, looked under the sink, looked in the box of his stuff by the bed. Nope, nowhere. This cold seems to have taken up lodging in my chest, so I really wanted that Mucinex, but certainly did NOT want to have to go out and get it.

I decided I'd at least put some Vicks on my chest (oh yeah, I smelled GOOD!), and on my way in to the bathroom I started praying, "Ok, Lord, here's the deal...I've got this wedding I've got to do on Sunday, and..." I opened the medicine cabinet to get out the Vicks, and what do you think my eye fell upon? Yup, the Mucinex. I know I'd looked there at least 3 times already and hadn't seen it.

Now, where on earth am I going with this? Just here - that God is indeed in the small stuff; He IS interested in the minutia of our lives. Cold medicine and parking places and what books to read, and even in what Bible verse to read. I know some find it difficult to reconcile God being interested in the tiny details of our tiny lives with the often horrendous and massive tragedy going on in out world, but if God is in the big stuff, then He has to be in the small stuff too, don't you think? It's not as though He's so busy concentrating on the big stuff that He doesn't have time for our petty concerns.

There's a lot going on in Haiti these days. Tales of tragedy and tales of hope. Tales of misery and tales of sacrifice. People being pulled from the rubble alive long after others had given up hope. Why let this one live, and not that one? Why let this one come through the tornado unscathed and the other perish? Why let the baby born to the crack mother live and the baby born to the woman who did everything right die? It's the ancient question posed by Job. Why, God, why? Why do bad things happen to good people - and conversely, why do good things happen to bad ones? Why does the child molester win the lottery and the minister working every day in the ghetto have to eke out a living for his daily bread?

I find it interesting that when Job asks God similar questions, God doesn't answer. He doesn't answer the question, though He does answer Job. Basically He says, "who are you, little man? Where were you when I created the universe?" He sounds very much the Wizard of Oz, asking how we dare to question Him. And yet....there certainly is something to that, isn't there? We cannot know the mind of God; we can only have faith and believe that God knows best, and that He is with us even in tragedy.

So, for me, I take great comfort in a God who is willing to open my eyes enough to see the Mucinex that was there all along, and a God who cares about my being able to speak above a rasp to marry a couple. I take comfort in a God who is in the small stuff of my life, and in the huge things of the world. If God is everywhere, then is He not also in the small stuff? Today, as I go about my half day at work, and errands afterwards, I will look for God in the small stuff, and I suspect I will see Him pretty much everywhere. How about you?