As I am writing this I look out my office window and I see the rain coming down, again. I think of the song by Supertramp, “Oh no, it’s raining again, Too bad I’m losing a friend.” We almost want to sing the old children’s song rain rain go away, come again some other day.” Where is our sunshine?
Yea I know, I am complaining about the weather! But for others it is not just complaining about weather but concern about what the river is doing. With all this rain both our rivers have certainly risen dramatically, and they tell me that the snow pack has not even started a significant melt. It does make some living close to the river concerned. As we have seen on the news of the people in Manitoba, the concern is very real. Some have lost their homes due to the recent floods.
I have been on this earth 51 years now, and 26 years in the pastoral ministry. In those years I have learned a few things - so slowly too often. One of the things I learned was that worrying about things does not change their outcome! All that does is stress me out, I get irritable, I can’t sleep, the blood pressure goes up, and so on. I also learned from the Bible that I should trust in the Lord with all my heart. I learned that as I put my trust in the Lord, He has my life in His hand. I learned that the Lord God has a plan for my life and anything that happens in my life will not cause this plan to fail.
When we love the Lord, follow and obey Him, He has promised to always be with us. He has promised to carry us, to lead and guide us, to provide for us, to heal us. Does this mean Christians are spared from “the bad things” of life? No, it does not. As the saying goes, bad things do happen to good people. What it does mean that even when we go through bad things, whatever those may be, we can turn to the Lord and find comfort and strength in Him. The Bible also says that the Lord is the anchor for my soul. We can anchor in Him and the floods of life cannot wash us away, even if the literal floods do.
I have known Christians who love and serve the Lord, go through difficult times in their lives. Yet in all of it they had peace, joy and inner strength. That can only come through the presence of the Lord in their lives.
Are you going through some trying, or difficult situations in your life? I encourage you to look to the Lord and receive His strength and peace to keep going. The 23rd Psalm is familiar to many of us and verse 4 reads: “Even when walking through the dark valley of death I will not be afraid, for you are close beside me, guarding, guiding all the way.” Even when you walk through times that seem as cold as death, we don’t need to be afraid, when the Lord Jesus Christ is walking beside us. He guards, guides, comforts and encourages us along the way.
This of course begs the question, have you allowed Jesus to walk beside you? Is He part of your life? If not we would love to introduce you to Him. Come talk to me, one of the other pastors of Clearwater, or another Christian. When Jesus is in your life, and bad things happen, and we all know they do, then you too can know what it is to have peace, joy and inner strength in your life when it seems things are falling apart around you.