February 16th, 2010
Capital G
A year ago this month, I was sitting in a friend’s apartment laughing and having a great time when I got a very unexpected phone call. It was my parents. My dad had received word that his position at work had been eliminated effective the following April. Let me give you a little background. I grew up in Peoria, IL which is (oddly enough) the world headquarters for the Caterpillar corporation. My dad had taken an engineering job there right out of college over 30 years ago. I knew the economy had seen a major downturn, but I have to admit, I never fathomed it would effect a man who had been working at the same major corporation for 30+ years. The phone call was a teary one, but my incredible parents were full of faith that God had a plan.
I hung up the phone and cried with my friend for a while before heading back to my own apartment where I took out my journal and wrote the lyrics to what became the title track on the EP I recorded last spring:
You give and take away
But still a faith remains
That proves itself worth more
Than wealth this world will claim
And so my song to You
Asks not what You can do
But here my faith resolves
To worship You in truth
In every circumstance, our God is God.
Like most people in a time of material loss, I thought of Job. In chapter one verse twenty-one, Job’s response to losing all his earthly wealth and family was, “I came naked from my mother’s womb, and I will be naked when I leave. The Lord gave me what I had, and the Lord has taken it away. Praise the name of the Lord!” So I had two choices: I could stay angry, sad and bitter or I could acknowledge that everything I have is the Lord’s and it is within his sovereignty to give and take away. The next scripture the Lord reminded me of was I Peter 1:7, “These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold—though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world.”
My family was blessed by an enormous amount of encouragement poured out by those around us, and within a month, my dad’s bosses had found a similar position for him within the same company. God provided and proved himself faithful once again.
I am so thankful for the Word of God and its living power to affect us. It is incredible to have words written thousands of years ago that speak directly to our situations today. Ecclesiastes makes it clear that there is nothing new under the sun, and I suppose circumstances like these are a good reminder of that. God cares for his creation, He knows what we feel, and He desires that our faith be proved strong.
Maybe you’re going through a hard time right now, or maybe things are going great in your life. Either way, I want to encourage you to remember that our God is God… with a capital G.