All, Never, Always

September 15

‘All’ is an overused word. Rather like, ‘never’ and ‘always.’ You always disturb me when I’m on the phone. You never pay attention to what I’m saying. All you ever do is criticize me. We tend to use these sweeping words to make our point when we’re annoyed. Doing so is the height of hyperbole.

We also exaggerate when our case is weak, when actual facts to support our position are few. We are not trying to defend our indefensible position with logic, we are trying to validate it through exaggeration.

It’s almost as though we are saying, ‘I know you’re right; I don’t have a case, but if I use an avalanche of indefensible argumentation against you, you’ll simply back down.’ We seem to think that if we’re not making sense, our opponent will simply extricate himself from a pointless exchange and we’ll win by default. But when we read words like ‘all’ in the Bible as they are expressed by the Lord through His prophets and the chroniclers of the history of Christ and the progression of His truth, we may stand on them.

As Paul says in II Corinthians 9:8, “God is able to make all grace abound toward you so that in all things, at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.” Unlike us, frail, foolish men that we are, when God expresses something in terms that encompass a totality of time and experience, He has the power and the willingness to cause it to be a reality.