broken pottery

“I am the Lord, and there is no one else; there is no God besides Me. I will gird and arm you, though you have not known Me, That men may know from the east and the rising of the sun and from the west and the setting of the sun that there is no God besides Me. I am the Lord, and no one else [is He]. I form the light and create darkness, I make peace [national well-being] and I create [physical] evil (calamity); I am the Lord, Who does all these things. Let fall in showers, you heavens, from above, and let the skies rain down righteousness [the pure, spiritual, heaven-born possibilities that have their foundation in the holy being of God]; let the earth open, and let them [skies and earth] sprout forth salvation, and let righteousness germinate and spring up [as plants do] together; I the Lord have created it. Woe to him who strives with his Maker!--a worthless piece of broken pottery among other pieces equally worthless [and yet presuming to strive with his Maker]! Shall the clay say to him who fashions it, What do you think you are making? or, Your work has no handles? Woe to him [who complains against his parents that they have begotten him] who says to a father, What are you begetting? or to a woman, With what are you in travail?” Isaiah 45:5-10

The fact the God strengthens me, even when I do not know Him. The times where I choose not to know Him. Not that I would take that as an excuse to forgo my relationship and live in the theory of grace. In that place of striving against God, no good comes and I wonder whether or not the only reason He has girded and armed me in a season of not looking for Him is for the simple fact that when I do choose to turn around and find Him, He's already given me the solidity to do so.

Not that I am so far from God. But in the midst of business and life, it's easy to let relationship with Him slip. Relationships take work. But it is more than worth it. MORE than worth it.

God is worth it.

I'd rather it be hard now that having the uncontrollable sadness of not knowing my Maker in the end. Living in even the slightest amount of opposition to God is hell.