What/Who Sustains You?

Scripture Verse that Caught my Attention today: Hebrews 1:3 He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word. When he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,

Observation: God, through Jesus, sustains all things.

Application: There is a lot of talk these days about sustainability—enduring for the long haul. It’s mentioned in regard to health-care, agriculture, energy, the environment, etc. Some of us as individuals need sustainability too. Sometimes we take on too much, work at a much too frantic pace, deprive our bodies and/or minds of needed nutrition, exercise, recuperation, and sleep.

The denomination of which I am a part utilizes a “whole-ness wheel” as a means of taking stock of our over-all health. Wheel looks like a pie chart with equal-sized pieces representing such things as physical, emotional, spiritual, social, and financial health, among other things. The idea is that we need a certain amount of health in all of the areas represented on the wheel in order for our lives to, well, ‘roll’ along properly. It’s a sustainability model.

However, as the author to Hebrews makes clear, real sustainability goes even deeper than the wholeness wheel or any other methods to encourage and monitor wholeness. Christ is the true sustainer of all. Christ is the one who has offered himself once and for all, even as in other ways he continues to offer himself for us.

Try as we might, we are not really able to sustain ourselves. It questionable at best as to whether we are even able to get ourselves going to begin with. God through Christ is both our initial inertia and our sustaining presence—the one who is able to keep us going in the midst of every bump in the road.

Prayer: Lord, we all face challenges at times, whether from without or self-inflicted. Let your sustaining presence be our guide to and through all that life has to offer. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

(Readings today included: 2 Kings 15-16, Hosea 1, Hebrews 1)