Friends of ours from Iowa, the Martins, came to stay with us a couple weeks ago.

The kids gathered around the breakfast table for my Mom’s delish french breakfast puffs–all 48 lasted all of 15 minutes.

Though we don’t get to see them often, we enjoy their friendship.

They were troupers and bunked in the basement, which brought the number of people sleeping under one roof to 13…14 if you count the one person in utero. Jim and I love when our house is used to its fullest potential. We love it because we know that it isn’t our house in the first place. It belongs to God.

I have no need of a bull from your stall
or of goats from your pens,

for every animal of the forest is Mine,
and the cattle on a thousand hills.

I know every bird in the mountains,
and the creatures of the field are Mine.

If I were hungry I would not tell you,
for the world is Mine, and all that is in it. (Psalm 50:9-12)

If you really stop to think about it, it’s a relief to know that everything belongs to a God who holds all things together by His powerful hand. So those cattle on a thousand hills (or houses in a thousand subdivisions; or cars in a thousand parking lots; or kids in a thousand schools…) are ultimately His responsibility.

One of my favorite quotes on this subject was spoken by John Wesley, a man who lived in the 1700s. Wesley was traveling home one day, and one distraught man rode his horse up to him, shouting, “Mr. Wesley, something terrible happened! Your house burned to the ground!” Wesley weighed the news, then calmly replied, “No. The Lord’s house burned to the ground. That means one less responsibility for me.”

It’s all His.