After Christmas brunch, my brother, Jeff, my wife, Wendy, and I were sitting in our sunroom, sharing the wonders and joy of finding a life fulfilled in Jesus.

Jeff said, “We don’t know who we are without God….”

Jeff’s wife of 30 plus years, Ann died two years ago on Christmas Day after several months of inoperable brain cancer.

Jeff was with her at the moment she passed into “the real world.”

Our daughter, Chelsey, died nineteen years ago in a traffic accident, as a passenger in our car.

We were all together in the moments before the collision when she passed into “the real world.”

In times of loss and the grief that follows, the plans that we had made for our futures are flipped on their heads. Everything changes. A new path of life opens, and we are forced into a decision of choosing between the possibilities.

So, who are we without God?

Rain falls on the righteous and the unrighteous.

“Bad things” happen to “good” people and “bad” people.

Our lives are shaped by many things, things that happen to us, our responses to these things, choices we make in our lives, and the consequences that follow.

Good and bad.

I have had people tell me that God must not be omniscient (all knowing) or omnipotent (all powerful) because He lets such bad things happen.

Or Maybe He just doesn’t care.

I have others tell me that they are Christians, but the possibility of certain bad things happening keeps them chained away from life in a cocoon of self-protection. (COVID, for example)

Wendy and I watched a really good movie last night at the suggestion of my friend, Tim.

“Greater.” (You can find it on NETFLIX)

I will not spoil it by telling any of the story.

But there was one line, the main character telling a football player, “While we are down here on this field, we only see and react to what is right in front of us. But, up there” he points to the coach in the press box, “they can see the whole field. You have to trust them.”

I can tell you, that trusting God with the control of your life, no matter what happens, NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS, will lead you into an understanding of who you are.

Seeing the world around you through the gift of the vision that God will give to you will change you and your reactions to those trials that now seem to control your thoughts and your life.

Peace and Joy will come to those who find who they are, by trusting in the One they were created to love.

You don’t know who you are, without God. You only see what is right in front of you.

He sees the whole field.

YOU HAVE TO TRUST HIM!

“It is the glory of God to conceal a matter,

To search out a matter is the glory of kings.”

Proverbs 25:2