Do you ever struggle to find God’s involvement in your life? Does it ever seem like you have more problems than divine help? Does it feel like life is overflowing with struggles and quandaries? I know that we can go through seasons when the days, weeks, months, and maybe years are stormy and cloudy, devoid of sunshine. Maybe you keep looking for a rainbow in these stormy seasons, and tricky to find some silver lining in all the clouds.
Of late, during some morning fellowship with God, I’ve been noticing some of God’s creative splendor as I sit next to my picture window. In these quiet early morning minutes, I’ve noticed some things about the sunrise that I haven’t been aware of before. In the last few days, the sky has been empty of clouds during the sunrise. While each sunrise has been pretty, it’s been interesting to consider some contrasts when there are clouds on the horizon. When there are no clouds, the sunrises are nice but not nearly as spectacular nor riveting as when clouds are present.
In the sunrise this morning, there were lots of clouds, and the light show that danced across the sky was captivating—changing minute by minute with incremental glory and dazzling awe. It was like God took His pallet of paints and threw orange, pink, purple, gray, yellow, and luminescent white on the backdrop of the dark sky. God stretched His paintbrush across the sky to refract light, using the clouds on His canvas for splendor, beauty, glory, majestic artistry, and grandeur.
Watching these contrasts in the sunrises over the recent days has caused me to think about the cloudy and stormy times in my life, along with the seasons that aren’t cloudy. For myself, when life is smooth and without storms, I can settle into auto-pilot. In contrast, when life is blustery or seems foggy, maybe it’s easier to recognize God’s participation with light, strength, help, wisdom, presence, genuine love, grace, patience, and so much more on the backdrop of the crises and stresses of life in cloudy mode.
When life has difficulties, whether large or small, I tend to lean into God for help, and sometimes the struggles accentuate the contrasts with God’s engagement in my life. Such contrasts can be like the glorious differences that I experience in the sunrises with clouds rather than the sunrises that lack clouds. Maybe we could apply the same paradigm in our lives for the situations and experiences that are tumultuous, cloudy, murky, hard, and even unmanageable.
Perhaps in the seasons of life where problems overflow, difficulties consume, tragedies flood, and quandaries engulf, maybe we could aim our focus and hope toward God. Maybe we could let the struggles that we go through in life remind us to keep our attention focused on God, inviting life, light, love, and all of Who God is to show up in contrast to the clouds and storms in our lives. Sincerely, I believe that God’s fingerprints can be more pronounced when life is stormy!
