It's Not About Me - Max Lucado [14]
Catch God in a bad mood? Won’t happen. Fear exhausting his grace? A sardine will swallow the Atlantic first. Think he’s given up on you? Wrong. Did he not make a promise to you? “God is not a human being, and he will not lie. He is not a human, and he does not change his mind.What he says he will do, he does.What he promises, he makes come true” (Numbers 23:19 NCV). He’s never sullen or sour, sulking or stressed. His strength, truth, ways, and love never change. He is “the same yesterday and today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8 ESV). And because he is, the Lord “will be the stability of your times” (Isaiah 33:6 NKJV).
And couldn’t we use some stability? For twenty-seven years the citizens of South Padre trusted the stability of the Queen Isabella Causeway, the longest bridge in Texas. Every day 19,000 motorists used her to travel between Port Isabel and South Padre Island. Secured by tons of concrete, the two-and-a-quarter-mile bridge was the only connection between the mainland and the island. Buttressed by deep pilings, approved by the best engineers. No one questioned the Queen Isabella.
Until September 15, 2001. At two o’clock in the morning four barges and a tugboat crashed into the support system and brought the bridge down, plunging cars and people into the Laguna Madre eighty-five feet below. Eight people died when 240 feet of the bridge collapsed.3
You need never fear the same will happen to God’s plan. His plan—born in eternity—will withstand any attack of humanity. Atheists, antagonists, skeptics, scholars—they’ve slammed into the bridge, but it has never budged. Texas engineers are regretting their work, but God will never regret his. “The Glory of Israel will not lie or have regret,” declared Samuel, “for he is not a man, that he should have regret” (1 Samuel 15:29 ESV).
HIS PLAN—BORN IN
ETERNITY—WILL
WITHSTAND ANY
ATTACK OF HUMANITY.
God’s plans will never change, because he makes his plans in complete knowledge. Forget hopeful forecasting. He declares “the end from the beginning” (Isaiah 46:10). Nothing takes him by surprise.“The plans of the LORD stand firm forever” (Psalm 33:11 NIV).
The cross will not lose its power.The blood of Christ will not fade in strength. Heaven will never announce the collapse of the bridge. God will never return to the drawing board. “What He does in time He planned from eternity. And all that He planned in eternity He carries out in time.”4
“The LORD Almighty has spoken—who can change his plans? When his hand moves, who can stop him?” (Isaiah 14:27 NLT). God never changes. Everyone else does. Everything else will.
In the hours I prepared this message, the movers all but emptied the Lucado house. Christmas meals, dinner-table laughter, good-night hugs for my clan under that roof—all past tense.Yet another constant becomes a transient.What changes are you facing?
Cemeteries interrupt the finest families.
Retirement finds the best employees.
Age withers the strongest bodies.
With life comes change.
But with change comes the reassuring appreciation of heaven’s permanence. His “firm foundation stands” (2 Timothy 2:19 ESV). His house will stand forever.
CHAPTER SEVEN
GOD’S GREAT LOVE
7
Several hundred feet beneath my chair is a lake, an underground cavern of crystalline water known as the Edwards Aquifer. We South Texans know much about this aquifer. We know its length (175 miles).We know its layout (west to east except under San Antonio, where it runs north to south). We know the water is pure. Fresh. It irrigates farms and waters lawns and fills pools and quenches thirst. We know much about the aquifer.
But for all the facts we do know, there is an essential one we don’t. We don’t know its size. The depth of the cavern? A mystery. Number of gallons? Unmeasured. No one knows the amount of water the aquifer contains.
Watch the nightly weather report, and you’d think otherwise. Meteorologists give regular updates on the aquifer level. You get the impression that the amount