Held Together

I was out backpacking with my wife for our four year wedding anniversary this past summer. It was her idea, I know what you were thinking, “what a jerk! You take your wife backpacking for your anniversary?” No, it was her idea. This is one of the many reasons I love this woman, she absolutely loves the outdoors and backpacking.

We backpacked for four days and three nights and covered almost 30 miles with 40 pound packs, it was very intense and challenging to keep it together and to accomplish the long hikes and to find the right camp sites at night. It was also very beautiful and it got me thinking about how beautiful the last four years of our marriage have been. Just as the natural beauty of nature and the delicate ecosystems of the forest are held together mysteriously by its creator, our relationship has held together beautifully, and magnificently by our Lord Jesus.

In Colossians chapter one, verses fifteen through eighteen, Paul tells us that Jesus holds everything together and that in Him all things were made, are held together, and have their purpose.

“We look at this Son and see the God who cannot be seen. We look at this Son and see God’s original purpose in everything created. For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, rank after rank after rank of angels—everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him. He was there before any of it came into existence and holds it all together right up to this moment. And when it comes to the church, he organizes and holds it together, like a head does a body. ”

Peterson, Eugene H.: The Message : The Bible in Contemporary Language. Colorado Springs, Colo. : NavPress, 2002, S. Col 1:15-18

There are always the creation verses the big bang debates that go on out there in academia and the debates between evolution and intelligent design. Tough questions are asked like, “Where does life, and everything in life, come from?” and “How do we know what God looks like?” or “Is there a God?” or “What is our purpose in this life?” These are no small questions. The answers simply reside with Jesus and in Jesus. It is from Jesus that all things come from and in whom all things are held together and find their purpose and meaning and if we see Jesus, Jesus told us that we have seen the father. And if we can see His creation, we can see something of the God who created it.

As I reflect on this adventure of backpacking with my wife and the last four years of our marriage, I am in awe of God and His magnificence because of who God is, because of what he created, and because of what He holds together with His good and perfect will and purpose. I see something of God out in His creation, and I see something of God in the unity of marriage. I see how God lovingly holds all things together and I see His purpose for our lives.

Created, held together, and given a purpose through Him,


Robbie