My wife and I recently made a very long road trip with our dog who DOES NOT ride well in the car at all! Whether we are going 5 minutes down the road or across the country like our recently trip. She pants and whines and generally makes the trip miserable, so we really questioned going and almost canceled this trip. Now I will say that we did use medication from the vet to assist, but prayed over this dog and the trip and God superseded any expectation I could have conjured up in my mind! With a truck pulling a trailer and starting off in a rain storm, I really thought we had missed His warning, but this trip was amazing! Another thing we noticed, as restrictions begin to be lifted, is the great variation of how people are now feeling about this virus. Some still in full mask and other protective gear while others were completely exposed!
I am not trying to minimize the “goodness of God” or define it by a simple road trip, but during what has been very trying times personally and nationally, it was a simple blessing and one that refreshed my heart, mind and body! A Greek word I love is SOZO (Sod’zo) which is the word used when one is well in spirit, mind and body all at the same time. God gave me a Sozo moment. I started thinking about what word can rally describe God? I searched my mind’s thesaurus and realized, in my limited mental capacity, that I really cannot think of a word in the English (American) language that fully captures the goodness of God!
A pastor friend wrote the following in a devotional recently:
“For those who do not believe, there is no miracle done that can make them believe. For those who believe, there should be no miracle necessary for us to know that our Lord still watches over us. You see our belief is not attached to action, except on our part. Our belief should inspire us to move, as the Spirit within us moves us. That is enough! For those who will only believe if God somehow intervenes in this pandemic, is putting conditions on their belief. We believe because of who He is, not what He does for us. It should always be more of what we can do for Him, instead of what He can do for us. He has already done enough in allowing us to have an audience with Him through the shed blood of Jesus. That is more than enough for me. How about you?”
As I sit here this morning and sum up my thoughts about all of this, God answers my questions:
“He says, “Be still and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.’ The Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.'” Psalm 46:10-11
Barnabas Man 