On Friday at the Jersey shore, pods of dolphins frolicked in the ocean so near to shore you could almost touch them. Down the beach, over 50 fishing boats of all sizes clustered off the coast. The stripers were running, and under the bright cloudless sky, everything looked beautiful in the world.
Overnight, the winds kicked in, and the glass patio doors rattled as the rain pounded without mercy. The ocean waves grew white in ferocity. That morning, the sun hid behind the nor’easter’s bleak greyness.
What a difference a day makes.
Life situations can change overnight as well. A phone call from a family member with bad news, a visit to the doctor with a grim diagnosis, a commute into work to be told it’s your last day, so many more circumstances that can alter the course of a life, much less lead to a bad day.
Can there be any good news when the most terrible announcements overwhelm and overtake daily life?
Fortunately, yes.
God is bigger than your circumstances. His plans aren’t derailed when it seems the worst has happened. Sometimes, great disappointments can even be blessings in disguise.
God is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
After every winter comes the new life of spring. Seasons change, but God never does.
The nor’easter lasted a day, and the sun came out after the storm blew through. But more importantly, the sun was there all the time – I just didn’t see it. When I heard the wind and saw the clouds, I focused on them and ignored the fact that the sun was there all along. I couldn’t see it, so I didn’t think about it.
We are engaged in spiritual warfare, and an effective enemy tactic is to distract our focus. He uses busyness, family or friend problems, work concerns, over-sensitivity, self-consciousness, financial worries, even national and local elections, to attract our attention. But when we concentrate on eternal matters, the things of this world dim in comparison. Like looking through the lens of a camera, if our focus is on things nearby, those details in the background are fuzzy. When we adjust the lens, we can bring the background into crisp detail, and the close things are less harrowing.
If we choose, as Paul did, what we focus on and “fix our eyes … on the eternal,” by comparison, we will be able to view our troubles as “light and momentary” AND “achieving eternal glory,” blessings in disguise.
“For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” 2 Corinthians 4:17-18
Seasons come and go, but we will reap in due time IF we do not lose heart:
And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart. Galatians 6:9
Father, I pray for those in difficult circumstances – that You would impart your peace to their troubled hearts, soothe their spirit, and help them to focus on the eternal. Let these trying times be useful in molding us to Your image.
