I’ve always liked the verse of the psalm that declares
“…the Lord God is a sun and a shield” (Psalms 84:11). But a recent week’s series
of encounters with the qualities of the sun gave new depth to that passage.
There
were in that week bright, sunny days—the kind of winter days I love when the
sky is blue, the air crisp, the temperature sharp but not frigid! It seems on those days like the sun is what
makes it all work to make you feel good. Then there were several days of
rain—wet, dreary, no sun shining on you with sparkling rays. They were
the kind of days when you knew that behind the heavy clouds and pelting rain there was a
sun that was impossible to see, but that very knowledge kept you going. Then
one day that week it got abysmally foggy—you could scarcely see more than a few
feet ahead of you. The one comfort was that
you knew that you could not see even that far were it not the sun beyond all that fog, emitting light
of such intensity that some got through and you could at least see to move
forward with caution, and in time that same sun’s heat would burn off the fog.
It
all gave profound meaning to the psalmist’s declaration that God is like the
sun. God’s love and light make cold and
hot days alike alive with zest. And on those days when troubles and perils make
for stormy, even fearful living, it is the fact that the things that imperil us
like a torrential rain are not greater than the light and promise of God’s
loving providence. And when we can’t see
through the fog of moral confusion, God is still the light that enables us to
see far enough to keep going, and we know that, at last, that light will overcome
the fog we can’t resolve.
Give
thanks that God is so-o-o like the sun and more! His light never fails.
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