Unbreakable

Friday night is pizza night in our home. Nutritionally worthwhile? Not exactly. Emotional comfort + intentional bonding time + easy clean up after a long week? Yes, yes, and yes! Last Friday we were relaxing on the couch waiting for the pizza to finish when we heard bit of a crash the kitchen. I was unaware stoneware could break from such an innocent act as baking a frozen pizza, but lo and behold, this is what we found.

Cracked like the Stone Table of Narnia! Nate and I were both pretty incredulous, but there was no denying the literal hot mess housed in our oven. And that got me thinking about the other things in life we take for granted until destruction takes its place. Whether its a city mangled by a tornado, a parents' marriage failure that rocks a home, or any of life's losses in between, devastation has a way of revealing things we treasure too much. Are we putting our faith, our pursuit of stability into things of this world? people of this world? Or are we putting our hope, our trust, both daily and eternal, in the everlasting, unchangeable Lord and Savior?

Yes, I know it is just a broken pizza stone, but it seemed to be physical manifestation for the many cracks and fissures in my own life. Do destructive changes still hurt? Yep. No doubt about that. But they also turn us, sometimes quite forcibly, toward the One who never changes. When Moses first asked God what He should be called, God replies "'I Am Who I am.'" (Exodus 3:14). Isn't that such a great promise? The God to whom Moses spoke is the same God to whom we speak! He has not changed. He will never change. God is just as faithful as He was thousands of years ago. He is just as powerful. He is just as good. He goes on to say, "'This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations'" (Exodus 3: 15). Guess what? We are part of those "all generations"!

Isn't that a humbling truth? My life seems so important to me. When a pizza stone cracks, I am annoyed that I have to bake the next one on a cookie sheet. I'm frustrated with the slightest inconvenience. And yet here is the God of the Universe, who was and is and is to come, waiting for my selfish soul to turn to Him and give Him praise. So if it takes a little breaking and brokenness to keep that truth in mind, I'll work on worshipful perseverance.

"And the four living creatures...

day and night they never cease to say,

'Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty,

who was and is and is to come!'"

Revelation 4:8