God has a way.

At church today, Jeff spoke of sin and how it permeates our world and lives and we've gotten so used to it and accepted it that a lot of times we don't even question that it's not the way things were supposed to be. Jeff said that sin is anything we use as replacement for God in our lives. That's tough, and makes it seem unavoidable that we are not all a mess. But that's because we are! We're fortunate though, because we have God's grace to show us how to move back in the right direction, toward him, to show us the right definition of holiness and love.

Sometimes I get sick of talking about and hearing about sin. The fact that it's so embedded in our makeup, our lives, and our world is overwhelming, but today in Kim's message, I heard that a lot of times even when we seem very fallen, God is still very much protecting us, because He knows we are His children, and when He knows that we have it in us to turn ourselves over to Him, He holds onto us because eventually we're going to find a way back to Him. Sometimes though, I think His protection isn't always clear and perfect and sometimes things still turn out messy, but I know somehow even when we can't see it, He has His handiwork in situations, jobs, relationships that don't work out how we always want them to. He has a bigger plan we can't see. Even if that is an overused statement, I don't think we can hear it enough. I know I need to thank Him for His bigger plan, and that even in the midst of my wishing things would be different, somehow He is going to work out what He's doing in us to His greater good. Not on our timing but on his.