But God...

        I like books.  I can't say that I am an avid reader.  I don't always have my nose in a book or these days, in an electronic device reading something.  I still have a lot of books. When we went to Spain, we took with us ten mail bags of books.  Each bag contained 3 20 pound boxes.  All the books were wrapped in plastic and sealed.  Then, when we left Spain, we reversed the process.  One of the first books that I got after my Bible, was a concordance.  I had a "Young's" Concordance which had every word of the Bible in it.  Later on, I purchased the "Strong's" concordance.  I had them both and the large volumes were used a lot as I would look of words almost constantly.  It was easy to look up the meaning of a Biblical Word and find out the Bible references where that word was used in the King James Version.  It was almost impossible to look of phrases.  The Word, "but" is used over 3700 times and the word "God" is used 4,473 times.  In the day of the printed pages, I never took it on to find out how many times the phrase, "but God" occurred.    First Corinthians 3:6-7 says, "I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase."  
     This phrases is used 44 times in the whole Bible.  Now, anyone can find out where that phrase occurs by a simple search on a Bible program with the computer.  I had the total list of references in about one second.  You can see by the number of times each word occurs that it would have taken much, much longer by looking them up individually in the written book.  The excitement, however, is not in the ease in which it can be done today, but in what the phrase says in the Bible.  The excitement is the contrast of what God does in our lives in the course of each and every day.  Every time that the phrase occurs we can find God doing something special.  Today's verse shows us a great example.  Paul planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase.  You may have heard sermons on this little phrase, "but God."  The first time I heard it used was in a conference given by our mission agency, United World Missions.  You may find yourself in the middle of testing or tribulation or another type of uncertain conditions, "But God..."  That is when you find the contrasting statement of what God is doing in your life.  So, whether you are Joseph facing his brothers or your own set of circumstance, you can always wait for the "But God..." to appear.  Praise God today for His involvement in our lives each and every day and in each and every day.