If God Is For Us, Who Is Against Us?

There’s a story about a little girl, who was running as fast as she could, trying not to be late for the bus. As she ran she prayed, “Dear Lord, please don’t let me be late! Dear Lord, please don’t let me be late!” As she was running and praying, she tripped on a curb and fell, getting her clothes dirty and tearing her dress. She got up, brushed herself off, and started running again. As she ran, once again she began to pray, “Dear Lord, please don’t let me be late… but please don’t shove me either!”

In life, we fall down… a lot.

Sometimes we want to blame God. Sometimes it’s really our own fault. Sometimes it’s not. Sometimes it’s nobody’s fault and there are no answers. In the Bible, there is no promise that if we believe – God will take away the tough times or the spills. No. But God does promise I will never leave you or forsake you.

I don’t know what you may be wrestling with in life, what burdens you may be carrying. I do know that part of being human means we can’t always understand why things happen the way they do. And sometimes it just doesn’t help – in fact, it hurts more – when we try to find someone to blame for our spills.

In the book of Romans, Paul writes, “If God is for us, then who is against us?” Later in that same chapter, Paul continues, “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all of creation, can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Whatever it is that you may be dealing with, even when there are no easy answers, I pray that you would know, in the very deepest part of your being, that God is with you, and that there is nothing that could ever separate you from his love.

Let us pray: Loving God, we all come carrying baggage in our lives – hurt and pain, heartache. Sometimes this stuff is right near the surface, other times it is buried deep. And we need you. We need your grace and peace. So we ask you to help us to trust you. Give us the grace we need to entirely surrender our lives to you. Empower us to live with the hope and the power of the resurrection so that we might take hold of the life that is truly life. In Jesus’ name. Amen.