Hope

Faithfulness Revealed

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There are many people who love looking at the clouds. Seeing their metamorphosis and witnessing their slow movement across the sky can be a sight to behold. Observing their shifts in color and how they signify changes in the weather can be a wonderful reminder of the intricacies of God’s seasonal design. Often they simply confirm to us the bigness of God, and our smallness in comparison.

The truly memorizing images of clouds are often the ones that obscure the light of the sun. These are the sunsets and the sunrises that capture our attention. They are the pictures posted on Instagram and fitted for postcards. The combination of clouds and light paint a picture that otherwise we would not see. Although covering the face of the sun, the resulting image often renews our appreciation of its light.

The same can be true in our Christian life. When God seems the most hidden, when the color of the clouds portend a storm up ahead, these are often the times where in retrospect we are most appreciative of the light of His Word (Ps. 119:105). His power pierces through the darkness to create beauty that we otherwise would not see. Just like the shifting clouds eventually move to reveal the brightness of the sun, so our own troubles pass and reveal the goodness of God’s purpose for us (See Rom. 8:28).

This can be hard in the moment. When the clouds appear on our horizon, when they seem to keep us hidden from God’s view, it can be difficult to remember that it is not our ability to see God that determines whether He is at work. The clouds may temporally conceal His majesty and goodness from our immediate view, but He is still the same God as when all seems right with our world. His light will break through the clouds, and His grace will sustain His children until that time as His purpose is revealed.

Or as Charles Spurgeon wrote:

O thou poor, distressed soul, who once lived in the sunshine of God’s face, but art now in darkness, remember that He has not really forsaken thee. God in the clouds is as much our God as when He shines forth in all the lustre of His grace.

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Purpose

Counted Worthy

Most of us like to think that we are people upon which others can depend. Even when we fail to meet our obligations, we are more likely to justify our behavior with excuses and explanations than we are to acknowledge the fact that we may not be as trustworthy as we like to think. We’re worthy of other people’s trust, we think, and they can count on us in good times and bad.

In the Scripture, we find that the disciples rejoiced in another type of faithfulness. Acts 5 tells us that they were glad “that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name” of Christ (Acts 5:41). In another words, they thought it was a privilege that God considered them worthy of contending with persecution, because they knew that as they suffered well, that they would be representing Jesus. Just like our Savior was a “Man of Sorrows” who was afflicted and condemned by this world, so the disciples were honored when they suffered the same way.

It’s a different paradigm than most of us are naturally inclined towards. We want to avoid suffering, and when we are faced with pain, we are more likely to ask “Why?” than we are to celebrate. Yet the disciples teach us by their response that those who suffer for God’s sake should be honored; it is a testament to their faithfulness and their love for Christ if they suffer well.

We would do well to recognize that all suffering isn’t persecution (we may also experience pain as the consequence to our sin, and some pain happens because of the fallen nature of our world). The distinguishing characteristic of persecution is whether we are suffering because of and for Christ. When we do experience such pain, we, like the disciples, should rejoice that we are counted worthy to represent Christ well even in difficult and unjust circumstances.

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