Let me set the scene for you. The sky was just beginning to darken, and I was finally leaving our business for the day. It had been a long day. And it was about to get longer. I was driving my husband’s car, which has fancier gauges than my van possesses (i.e., I didn’t even know how to tell how much gas I had), and right in the middle of a busy intersection, you guessed it … I ran out of gas. At first, I thought I stalled the car—I’m pretty good at stick shift driving, but it could happen. But no, I just plain ran out of gas. In the worst possible place. The car wouldn’t even allow itself to be pushed in neutral, because it’s too fancy for its own good and some emergency brake thing kicked in. So I was stuck. In the middle of the intersection. And I might have sworn in front of my 12-year-old. After a super long day of running our family-owned business, answering all the questions, being the one people looked to for guidance on whatever they needed, being confident and independent, I had no idea what to do. All I wanted in that moment was for someone else to handle this. Someone … capable. I wanted someone with the ability to say, “I’ll take care of it. I’ve got this.”

You know, if you ask people what qualities they are looking for in a spouse, you might get some typical answers: good sense of humor, cute, smart, athletic, likes long walks on the beach. Rarely would you see the word capable in that list. But it’s one of my favorite attributes of my husband—I joke that I married him because I had a lot of car trouble in college. He can fix almost anything. But even he has limits, mostly in the areas of time and space. I was thinking about this as cars beeped and swerved around me in that intersection while he was 25 minutes away and busy. I realized that capability is one of my favorite attributes of God too, and he’s not limited by time or space. He often tells us, if we’d only listen: “I’ll take care of it. I’ve got this.”

Have you ever stopped to think about how capable our God is? We know he is loving. We talk about his mercy and goodness. And these are great things, don’t get me wrong. But also, don’t forget his power. Don’t forget his ability to take care of everything. To take care of us.

 The Lord is my strength and my shield; in him my heart trusts, and I am helped; my heart exults, and with my song I give thanks to him. (Psalm 28:7 ESV)

“I am helped.” English major nerd alert, but did you catch that passive voice verb? God does the shielding. God has the strength. God does the helping. He has to. He has given us all many gifts and capabilities, but we have limits. So many limits. Time and space and sinful natures get in the way of us helping ourselves. We can’t possibly do enough to save ourselves from the problems we’ve gotten ourselves into. God expects perfection, and we can’t reach that.

We read in Romans that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (3:23). Read: We are not capable. We can’t reach the glory of God. We are stuck in the middle of the stupid intersection with no gas. How depressing it would be if the passage ended there. How depressing it would be if our God were not capable. But it continues, “and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus” (3:24). God says to us, “I took care of it. I’ve got this.”

What a relief to be in the hands of a capable God. A God who had the power to create the universe and who also continues to take care of his creation. A God who spoke to the sun and moon and stars and who also speaks to us. A God who reigns and who deigns to come down to a fallen creation so we can be with him in his kingdom. A God who can do it all and a God who did it all.

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. (Ephesians 3:20-21)

God’s got this.