To scatter the color and light

And so here it is…again, predictable is the Sunrise.  Clouds obscure it’s Majesty for a time, and yet, clouds actually accentuate it’s beauty, by scattering it’s color and light.  There are clouds in my life again, obscuring my ability to see the next step.  But perhaps God is using this diminished vision to scatter the color and light He shines through my life.  Perhaps these clouds of obscurity are there to create a Greater Beauty, like the Sunrise.   Change is hard, it’s just uncomfortable.  Just when we get settled into a comfortable place, something upsets the rhythm, the groove we have grown used to.  But grooves eventually become ruts that cause our wheels to get stuck, and what was once a place of comfort, ease and safety; has now become a place where we are stuck.  Perhaps that is why God is constantly allowing change to occur in our lives, to keep us out of a rut, to keep us leaning on Him, to scatter the light and color He is creating.

There is a Scripture that is so often used in times of Obscurity: ¹¹ For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.”  (Jer. 29:11)

Such a Beautiful Verse, and yet there is so much more to the story of this verse.  Here is the Title of the Chapter it is found in:  A Message to the Exiles.   So the backdrop of this story is not so glamorous.  The Israelites had been involved in deep rebellion and idol worship.  God had prophesied through Jeremiah about a coming Captivity:

³ “From the thirteenth year of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah, even to this day, these twenty-three years the word of the Lord has come to me, and I have spoken to you again and again, but you have not listened.   (Jer.25)  Really, reading the whole story is best (Jeremiah 25 through 29) but for our purposes here I will just tell it.  So these beautiful words of “I know the plans I have for you…”, are a promise of future restoration and good after the Captivity has occurred. Sometimes God’s orchestrates times of Uncertainty, or what feels like A Captivity, in order to bring about His Greater Plan, His Greater Good through our lives.  I think I am in such a time, a time of Uncertainty.  Perhaps you are too.  Here the comforting Words of the Lord to you and me, as we finish this devotional with the rest of God’s Message to  the Exiles:

 I will visit you and fulfill My good word to you, to bring you back to this place. ¹¹ For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope. ¹² Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. ¹³ You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. ¹⁴ I will be found by you,’ declares the Lord, ‘and I will restore your fortunes and will gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I have driven you,’ declares the Lord, ‘and I will bring you back to the place from where I sent you into exile.’  (Jeremiah 29)

A scattering of Color and Light, like the clouds in the Sunrise.  God is a Restorer, a Deliverer, A Savior.  I say to myself, and you, “God knows what He is doing here.  Rest in Him, and trust Him in the Time of Obscurity.”