The God Who Never Strains
By Pastor Justin Cooper
The other night I stood in my driveway longer than I meant to. I had come outside to bring something in, and I ended up just looking up. No agenda. No clock. Just the sky, and more stars than I could ever begin to count.
And I'll admit — a question I thought I had settled came creeping back. Not does God exist. A quieter one. Can God really handle what I brought outside with me?
Maybe you know that question. It comes at odd hours. It comes when the bill is bigger than the paycheck, when the diagnosis is worse than you feared, when you have prayed the same prayer so many times you have stopped expecting an answer.
So let me take you to a verse you and I have read a hundred times and probably skipped a hundred times.
"And God made two great lights... he made the stars also."
— Genesis 1:16
Look at how that sentence ends. God made the sun to rule the day. God made the moon to light the night. And then, on the same day, almost like an addendum — he made the stars also.
Four hundred billion of them in our galaxy alone. And ours is only one of billions of galaxies. Do you know what that cost God? Not months. Not minutes. Not even a moment of effort. It cost Him a word.
Here is the line I keep coming back to.
"It took man millennia to make a light bulb. It took God a moment to breathe out stars."
Pastor Justin Cooper
Gospel Light Baptist Church
He didn't put His back into it. He put His breath into it. And a universe answered.
So let me bring that all the way down to your driveway, and mine. If God is powerful enough to breathe out four hundred billion stars without a single strain, then the thing you carried outside with you tonight is not too heavy for Him. He is not stretched thin. He is not running low. He is not wondering how He will manage your situation on top of everyone else's.
He is powerful. Fully. Still. Tonight.
Here is your Monday morning. Before you open your email, before you answer the first text, before the week gets its hands on you — take the one thing you are most tempted to carry by yourself, and say it out loud to God. Name it. Then leave it with the God who never strains. You are not informing Him. You are trusting Him.
Father, You spoke and the stars obeyed. You did it without effort, and You did it on purpose. I believe You are powerful enough for what I am facing. So I am setting it down at Your feet right now. Do what only a God who breathes out galaxies can do. In Jesus' name, amen.
Reflection: What is the one burden you keep picking back up — the one you have never fully trusted God to be strong enough to carry?
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