I was the kid who gave my Sunday school teacher gray hair because I always seemed to ask the questions everyone wanted to ask but were afraid to. Not me. Thankfully, my teacher was a wise man; after three or four whys in a row, he referred me to Isaiah 55:8-9: “The Lord says, ‘My thoughts are not like your thoughts. Your ways are not like my ways. Just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts’” (NCV).

I want to serve a God who is bigger than I, one whom I can’t fully comprehend or understand. I don’t want a god you can put in a box. I don’t want a god that runs with programs and formulas. Even now, when I wonder why God didn’t answer a prayer the way I wanted him to or allowed something to happen to me that I don’t understand, I can almost hear Him whispering, “My ways are not your ways. My thoughts are not your thoughts.”

Most of us like to be in control, some so much that we have a name for them: control freaks. But all of us like to control things to a certain extent: our finances, our relationships, our tempers, our appetites. Control is good, but sometimes life is like a horse bucking and there’s only one strand left in the cinch. You walk into your office one day and discover your job has been eliminated. You never saw it coming, and even if you did, you had no control over it. Or you get one of those frantic phone calls from your spouse. There’s been an accident. Talk about feeling out of control.

I would love to tell you that as a follower of Christ you will never have any of those out of control situations, but if I did, I would be lying. The Bible says that the rain falls on the just and the unjust, meaning life happens. To everyone. But the hope I can give you is this: Even when things seem to be spinning out of control, God is still in control. Nothing unexpected happens with God. Whatever out of control moment you are going through, God has chosen you to experience it, and he has a plan for you to get through it.

This is one of my favorite descriptions of just how abundant God’s mercy is. The sun is 93 million miles from the earth. That’s millions of miles, but it doesn’t stop there. The next closest star to the earth, besides the sun, is around 26 trillion miles away. So think about it: The psalmist compares how high or how far the heavens are above the earth to God’s mercy. Twenty-six trillion miles of mercy. That’s a lot of mercy!

Maybe you’ve lost hope for the future because, try as you might, you can’t be the person you want to be. God wants to give you a fresh start. There is no sin or mistake that God’s mercy can’t cover. You can’t use it up. Ever.

“You know when I leave and when I get back; I’m never out of your sight. I look behind me and you’re there, then up ahead and you’re there, too—your reassuring presence, coming and going.” (Psalm 139:3, 5, The Message)

Join us as we learn and worship God at Sendero Cowboy Church. Come on out to the Show Barn on Sunday mornings at 10:30am. It’s worth the drive!