Oh, sweet vacation...

Well, we just got back from vacation last week! When I say "we", I mean myself, my wife, her parents, her sister, sister's husband, and three little girls. I will withhold any smart remarks about THAT!
We did have a good time though - we went to Branson, Missouri and had a blast. We spent a couple of days in Arkansas and finally got home on Friday morning at about 2 a.m. after 6 blissful days on the road.
While I tried to just take a break from work and all the stress of life, I did look for opportunities to see God working around us in the different places where we stayed. I prayed that I would be able to experience Him throughout the week and was really hoping to spend plenty of time reading the Bible and praying. As you can probably guess, that didn't work out the way I planned it. With all the coming and going and with people all over the place, I didn't get to spend any more time than usual in the Word. But I did see God - just in a different way.
As we made our way through the overcrowded streets of Branson, full of tourists "riding the Ducks," or eating at a buffet, or just taking a drive down the strip, I found myself frustrated with it all. I mean, there were people everywhere! Cars and pedestrians and bicycles flooded the city. And the downtown area was crowded with families and couples following moms and wives and grandmas and girlfriends into random shops to gawk at clothes and shoes that they "really need" but for some reason won't buy.
One evening, after returning to the vacation house, I started to think about all of those people. It hit me that all of those people aren't just pedestrians and shoppers and annoying tourists (like myself), but that they were individuals with their own lives, lives that were being sustained by God Himself, even if they refused to acknowledge Him. It amazed me what God is capable of! He was (and is) upholding the bodies and minds and lives of all of those people and people all around the world AT THE SAME TIME!
Our God is that powerful. And it also amazes me how many people in this world fail to see that without God keeping them breathing, their life would be over. It's sad. I hope all those people in Branson last week will one day realize just how much they need Him; that without Him there is not life, there is no breath, there is no future. I hope that, as they pick their buffets, or go window shopping, or hit the highways to head home, they see just how active God is in their lives. The Bible tells us that God knows all the hairs on our heads, that He knows more about us than we can ever know about ourselves. How foolish is it not to believe in or trust a God with that knowledge and power?
So, next time you take a vacation and get frustrated with the crazy tourists, remember who made them and say a prayer for them. Jesus died for annoying pedestrians too and maybe one day they (and everyone else in the world) will realize, before it's too late, the salvation that is available to them through Him, and that without the grace and power of God, nothing can exist.