Letting the Sun Shine
Posted on: March 24, 2016
- In: Everyday Life | Faith
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To those in the Ottawa area, this title probably seems odd, with snow falling and ice pellets, freezing rain and rain in the forecast for the next 24 hours. But I was inspired by these words in Psalm 84:11*, which I read yesterday:
For the LORD God is a sun and shield;
he bestows favor and honor.
Right now, I’m facing a number of personal challenges–not just the work to sell my home but, among other things, the fact that someone in my family is reeling after a diagnosis of cancer. It comforts me to know that God is there to protect and shelter me because of his merciful and everlasting love for me and for all his children.
When we deal with challenges–physical, emotional, financial–we may instinctively want to keep the struggle to ourselves or try to power through it on our own. But God is there to lead us to people who can help us get through it, to comfort us with the knowledge that he will always hear us and never abandon us, to show us the way forward.
We may feel that our problems are too insignificant in the grand scheme of things to “bother” God about. Or that they’re too big for God to handle. We may not find our prayers answered in the way that we’d hoped, but no problem that confronts us is so small as to be beneath his notice. Remember these words of Jesus in Luke 12:24:
“Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds!”
Nor does any problem loom too large for him to overcome. Think of the Lord’s words in Jeremiah 32:27:
“Behold, I am the LORD, the God of all flesh; is anything too hard for me?”
Whatever challenges we face, I pray that we would remember what an awesome God we have–a God who longs to spend time with us and talk with us and who wants us to bring our thanks and our cares to him.
“Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For every one who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.”
~ Matthew 7:7-8
(*Scripture quotes taken from the Holy Bible, Revised Standard Version, 2nd Catholic Edition.)
A Catholic Convert in Ottawa 