CLOUDS
Wow! I Have witnessed some incredible storms in the last couple of years! Isn't it the cloudy and cold days that make us especially fond of the sunny and warm days? Sometimes we experience dark and cloudy days in life when things don’t seem to be going our way. If your life was always filled with predictable, easy circumstances, you would not need faith. It is during the times of great difficulty in our lives that our faith is grown and made known. Do things seem dark and cloudy for you right now? Don't despise them...God is trying to do something great in your life!
1 Pet 1:7 These (trials) have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.
Exodus 40:34-35 Then the cloud covered the Tent of Meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. 35 Moses could not enter the Tent of Meeting because the cloud had settled upon it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.
Remember, clouds bring the rain that is crucial to the life force of growth and productivity. It is all those clouds and rain that satisfies the thirsty ground and brings about our sustenance. King David said, "You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water.” Ps 63:1
Sometimes people ask, “If God is God, why doesn’t he make everything easy?” When everything is easy, growth does not happen. It is difficult times that cause the greatest change and breakthrough in our lives. Jesus said, ”In this world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” (Jn 16:33) I don’t go to the gym because it’s comfortable, I go because of its results. If you know that your eternal life coach, the Holy Spirit, will only lead you along paths that are for your ultimate good, then you can proceed with great faith knowing your best is yet to come!
To be sure, this is no time for giving up! God has great plans for you and his plans will succeed! God is ready to pour out his glory in your life; he needs you to believe him! If you're going through something that is difficult right now–know this… Great faith is grown in times of...