The Sun Always Shines

There are a lot of things we deal with day to day that can seem overwhelming. In the midst of the storm we are constantly looking for God and waiting for the sun to come out. When the battle is fierce, things don’t go our way, we can’t seem to do anything right and the battle in our head is our worst enemy, we have to fight. We have to fight with passion, trusting that God will come through to save the day.

Luke recounts an amazing story of Jesus in chapter 8. Jesus directs the disciples to go to the other side of the lake and on the way across Jesus steps out for a little nap and wham, the storm hits. The boys freak out and wake up Jesus proclaiming the fact that they we’re going to drown (as if it were a forgone conclusion). So Jesus gets up. Probably with some serious bed-head and simply tells the wind to chill out. Of course they were amazed, and asked each other, “who is this dude?” What happens next is what is interesting to me.

As soon as they step off the boat on the other side a freaky, smelly, ugly, homeless, naked, demon-possessed dude is right there to greet them as Jesus was stepping off the boat. What a great welcome! He sees Jesus and Jesus finds out what is going on, the demons inside the man asked to be cast into some pigs and the man the demons possessed was set free. In the next scene we see a healed man, sitting quietly, clothed and sane at Jesus’ feet.

What an awesome picture of how life is. All around us there are people, wrapped-up in sin, distracted, spiritually empty, controlled by the enemy, wandering, looking, hoping, homeless and naked looking for Jesus. We usually take off, in ministry, with great intentions and sometimes with Jesus in our boat. When a soul hangs in the balance the storms come, meticulously planned by the enemy. Those storms come to detour our desire, but, if we turn to Jesus to do what only He can do, miracles happen and we follow Him to meet those who need His healing power. And we will see the beautiful picture of others sitting at His feet, following Him, worshipping Him…clothed in majesty only because of His redemptive power and grace.

We’ve fought through some storms, and no, the battles not over, there will be more. But we will continue to persevere through the storms, asking Jesus to lead us on, so that more may know the peace of sitting at His feet. Although night will fall, dark clouds will rise-up and settle again, storms will come…but with Jesus…the sun always shines.

Please rejoice with us because 2 souls have fought through a lot of storms and found Jesus. Stefan baptized Irvin Johnson and Dennis Paxson on Sunday Dec. 11th. Please pray for these boys as they deal with obstacles from morning ‘till night.