May 17

I can easily get caught up in vast thoughts while driving right past the most basic of God's provisions.

Thus, I assume things I cannot control.

Psalm 139:17-18 says, "How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I would count them, they are more than the sand. I awake, and I am still with you."

Stay (cation) at home is getting old for almost all of us. Several people this week remarked how they are frustrated and feeling impatient. Me too.

It really surfaced for me this past week seeing high school kids graduating in an altered state.

I do have a certain level of empathy for the governmental leaders who are holding the reins, trying to figure out when and how we can all get back to commerce.

At the same time, don't you sense we're all stuck waiting to live...instead of living?

This sense of waiting can cause us to ignore what God is doing, things we cannot see. And, we can fly over the most basic of blessings.

It's a bigger challenge to rest and rejoice in our faith relationship with Jesus when we're stuck, when it doesn't appear much is progressing, when we can't see the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel.

Our response could almost be like, "I'll get back to Jesus after He releases us from this present societal stoppage."

I see no way out, save for working on a thankful heart; thanksgiving for God's faithfulness to each of us, certainly in the big things, but also in the most mundane.

Even better - we awake, and He is still with us!

Hebrews 10:23 says, "Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful."

My circumstances rise and fall, come and go, and constantly change. So do my impressions.

But God, always faithful, always providing, always with us, is enough for me to celebrate, reason enough to worship Him today.

-Mike Rydman, Lead Pastor, Radiant Church | Juneau