Jesus + Nothing = Everything

The day after Christmas I woke up and wrote in my journal, "The reason for the hope I have is Jesus - Him, His presence, Him as Immanuel - God with us. Nothing in this world + Jesus = joy, peace, hope ... all the things. When we fix our eyes on Him, set our mind and thoughts on Him and turn our hearts and attention to Him then Jesus + nothing = everything. It's Him. Not Him healing our diseases physically or mentally ... not Him giving us material things or Him answering prayers about our loved ones. It's just Him as our everything. He. Is. The. Gift."

I wrote all this because, in my head, I know it is the truth ... but I haven't been living it for a while. The good news of the Gospel is that we can be filthy rich even when we are in poverty. We can have joy even in the worst suffering. We can walk on level ground emotionally even when the waves of life are tossing us around.

That morning God gave me Jeremiah 17:5-8 to read, "Cursed are those who put their trust in mere humans, who rely on human strength and turn their hearts away from the Lord. They are like stunted shrubs in the desert, with no hope for the future. They will live in barren wilderness, in an uninhabited salty land. But blessed are those who trust in the Lord and have made the Lord their hope and confidence. They are like trees planted along a riverbank, with roots that reach deep into the water. Such trees are not bothered by the heat or worried by long months of drought. Their leaves stay green, and they never stop producing fruit."

I put my pen down and went into work where I learned that I had been laid off. In God's loving way I heard Him say, "Let's prove that theory to be true. I am Your everything. We'll move that from your head to your heart."