The day drags on, the energy to continue is lagging, and the end is just not in sight. A feeling of loneliness, being alone in the fight, is more real than what you know to be true. That God is there, that God does care.
On a beautiful sunny southern California day, anyone can have hope. It pours down from the sky. It roars in with the waves of the ocean. It stands steady, ready, waiting patiently as the mountains.
But in the cold, dark or rainy world we live in, it is hard to remember. When illness is uppermost in our minds, when pain demands our attention, we find it hard to remember. When we look around us and see need for the money, for health, for miracles, we find it hard to remember. In the fog of the cares of this life we struggle to shake off those weights that distract us from what we were born to do.
But we must remember. We remember who God is, what he has done for us. We remember God and His greatness. We are the hope for others around us. We are the light. As Paul said in a letter to the Corinthians:
2 Corinthians 4:7-9 (The Message)
If you only look at us, you might well miss the brightness. We carry this precious Message around in the unadorned clay pots of our ordinary lives.
That’s to prevent anyone from confusing God’s incomparable power with us. As it is, there’s not much chance of that. You know for yourselves that we’re not much to look at.
We’ve been surrounded and battered by troubles, but we’re not demoralized; we’re not sure what to do, but we know that God knows what to do; we’ve been spiritually terrorized, but God hasn’t left our side; we’ve been thrown down, but we haven’t broken.
So we say with Tree63 – Blessed Be the Name of the Lord.
Blessed be your name
When the sun’s shining down on me
When the world’s all as it should be
Blessed be your name
Blessed be your name
On the road marked with suffering
Though there’s pain in the offering
Blessed be your name
Every blessing you pour out,
I turn back to praise
When the darkness closes in, Lord
Still I will say…
Blessed be the name of the Lord
