From beginning to end

Lord, through all the generations you have been our home! Before the mountains were born, before you gave birth to the earth and the world, from beginning to end, you are God. (Psalm 90:1-2 NLT)

From beginning to end - the Alpha and the Omega. God has always been and will always be. So, why do we worry through life's challenges when we know God has always been and will always be with us? Why do we stress over life's woes when we know the one who can put all things right again? We need to remember he is both the beginning and the end - what comes in the middle is where we might just try to take the reins out of his hand way too often!

When we make our home somewhere, don't we do more than just pass through that space? We actually begin to put down roots, finding comfort in the small things that make that place, big or small, our home. If God is our home, won't we put down roots in a spiritual sense that help us to feel a certain sense of 'comfort' in knowing he is our place of refuge and safety? Roots signify life - we find our life in him - in the one who begins everything within us and who will finish it perfectly!

Before anything else exists, he is God. Before anything is formed, he is God. We can ask God to bring things into existence in our lives, such as a good spouse, special friend, or the security of a good job where we can be productive. Before any of these, he needs to be God in our lives. Nothing can interfere with him doing his work in our lives more than us placing something or someone else before him. God's place in our lives was always designed to be in the center of it - not pushed off to the side or a second thought.

Herein is the rub. We want him to be central in our lives, but we don't quite want to give up that place because we think it puts us, with all our desires, somewhere in the periphery. We don't belong in the center of our lives - we weren't created to function well without Christ at the center. Center is the place God created within us for himself, but we try to occupy that space over and over again, don't we? God's presence will not force us out of that space, but he will continue to show us that he isn't at the center of our lives!

It may be in small ways, or one whopping big way. He isn't going to force his way into that space, but he will reveal how many times we push him into the periphery and take that space ourselves. He will wait for us to realize it - then wait for us to invite him into that place designed to be his 'home' within each of us. When he comes into his 'home', we might sense a little clean-up activity underway, but that is only because we have cluttered that space with our own 'stuff'. He is God, will always be God, and will always desire his rightful place in our lives, free of all that 'clutter' we manage to accumulate there. Just sayin!