Let God define your day!

One morning this year I was driving down to Edmonds to The Center to spend the day doing some one on one and group counseling sessions. It was about 7:30 am in late February. As I was driving I saw a brilliant pink painted on to the sky in front of me. The great Washington mountains were the backdrop to this beautiful picture. They stood so clear and tall and strong with this pink so bright is was almost fuchsia filling in the background so effortlessly.
It was so pretty that my eyes filled with tears as I looked at this creation. I felt as though I was looking right into the face of God. I marveled at His abundant love for us by creating things so beautiful to look at. He gave us a picture to gaze at full of color and joy and brilliance. It was all I could do to not stop right there on the freeway to just stare and worship Him with all of my heart.

Thankfully for the cars behind me, I kept driving and thanked God over and over again for giving me such a wonderful view of who He was as I drove to a place where I was battling for my life. There are times when I know that I know that I know that God is right beside me, so personal and loving. This was one of them. How can you question His existence when you look at something so amazingly beautiful? I could just picture the Lord softly breathing this beauty into the sky hoping someone would be reminded of how much He loves us.

I kept driving and about five minutes later the scene began to change and there was a light fog beginning to cover this bright brilliant pink sky that cascaded above the mountain tops. You could still see the faded pink behind the fog. And then just about five more minutes later the pink was completely blocked by the fog. There was no reminder of the brilliance of color except in my memory. It was so quickly gone that it saddened me to not be able to see the beauty but only see the grey, dark sky that was now in front of me.

I thought about this all day and into the week…about how quickly the beauty was gone. It wasn’t until about a week later when I was again driving back down there, that God revealed to me what He was wanting to tell me through that. I know that He waited until that exact moment for me to understand it. His timing is perfect. I was at a crossroads. I was trying to understand why I had some really great days and then followed by such challenging ones. The challenging days seemed like I had fallen so far backward that I couldn’t understand what was going on and how I would ever move forward.

God shared with me that some days things are clear and brilliant and defined right before our eyes. There is nothing standing in the way. We feel confident in what we see and believe. We don’t question anything because we see it right there in front of us.

And some days there are things, attitudes, maybe sin, fears, troubles or whatever it might be clouding our vision of who God is. We know and acknowledge our faith, but there are things that stand in the way of us seeing clearly. We know there is something great behind the fog and clouds.

Then there are days or times in our lives when we can’t seem to find our faith. It seems completely blacked out or unreachable. We either walk through the day without even acknowledging God or we don’t want to see Him.

Sometimes we will be in the darkness or be totally blocked by the events or emotions in our life and we can’t see where God is. Our situations or our pasts seem to stand in the way of any clear view of the beauty that God wants for our lives. We just want to see God. We just want answers. We just want to find Him again but we can't see Him.

God showed me three distinct pictures. One was a clear, bright, and brilliant and color filled scene with no obstructions. Everything was clear and right there in front of me. The next was still there, but clouded just enough so that the clarity of the beauty seemed out of reach. The last picture was grey, dark, and blocked out.

Is every day going to be bright brilliant and clear like the beauty of the fuchsia flashed across the sky? Definately not. Are there going to be days when things are going to seem cloudy? Definitely. Will there be days or times in our lives when we can’t see anything? Probably.

But the great thing about whatever kind of day we are having is that God is there. Even when we can't feel him, or find him ourselves. He never leaves us. We are never alone. He promises to hear us when we call out to him. He promises to help us walk in the right path when we ask him. He promises to pull us out of the muddy pit and set our feet on solid ground when we reach our hand out to him.

One of the things that I am learning is that events don't define who we are. Christ does. Events give us understanding and trials refine us. But Christ defines us. When we can learn to stand solid in who we are in Christ and no matter what is happening during the day that one thing never changes and we won't let good and bad days change who we think we are. Our worth is from who God says we are, not from an event, an attitude, a mistake, or a decision.

If you are in the midst of seeing the brilliant sky or a little fog or a completely dark day, God thinks the same of you no matter what kind of day it is. No matter what kind of mess we are in. No matter what kind of mood we are in. Seek God always. Stop and remember who He is...who He says you are...and whose you want to be.

God thinks you are bright and brilliant and beautiful. Really...it's true.
Love, Teresa