On Spurgeon and Cloudy Days

Those of you who know me know that these have been challenging days for me personally and professionally. For those of you who do not know me, these have been challenging days for me personally and professionally. I imagine you can relate. I have talked to many friends who have suffered tremendously. Students who literally lost their hometowns to tornadoes (Kristin Wilkerson, my former assistant said, "at least you know a hurricane is coming") in the past few days, difficulties all over, families struggling with addiction, job loss--it is easy to feel overwhelmed.

When I open my Bible program on my PC, I see a devotional classic from Charles Spurgeon. Today's devotion caught my attention. I didn't paste all of it here, but between the truly sad situations of the people who are reeling from a week of storms and these lines from the devotion, I figured I needed to finish the cake, pass out the parting gifts and dismiss my pity party. Join me in praying that we allow God to speak grace, comfort and direction into our troubled lives. Pray especially for families, churches, and entire towns that need a ray of sunshine.

From Spurgeon's Daily Devotion

"Thou art my hope in the day of evil."

— Jeremiah 17:17

There are many who have rejoiced in the presence of God for a season; they have basked in the sunshine in the earlier stages of their Christian career; they have walked along the "green pastures" by the side of the "still waters," but suddenly they find the glorious sky is clouded; instead of the Land of Goshen they have to tread the sandy desert; in the place of sweet waters, they find troubled streams, bitter to their taste, and they say, "Surely, if I were a child of God, this would not happen." Oh! say not so, thou who art walking in darkness. The best of God's saints must drink the wormwood; the dearest of His children must bear the cross. No Christian has enjoyed perpetual prosperity; no believer can always keep his harp from the willows. Perhaps the Lord allotted you at first a smooth and unclouded path, because you were weak and timid. He tempered the wind to the shorn lamb, but now that you are stronger in the spiritual life, you must enter upon the riper and rougher experience of God's full-grown children. We need winds and tempests to exercise our faith, to tear off the rotten bough of self-dependence, and to root us more firmly in Christ. The day of evil reveals to us the value of our glorious hope.