Do not hide your face from me when I am in distress. Turn your ear to me; when I call, answer me quickly. – Psalm 102:2

Today’s Scripture Reading (July 16, 2019): Psalm 102

Glenn Pemberton in “Hurting with God” writes that “we live in a world that is beyond our control, and life is in a constant flux of change. So we have a decision to make: keep trying to control a storm that is not going to go away or start learning how to live within the rain.” Several years ago, a friend of mine moved from an inland place of the sun to a coastal space that seemed to exist in the eternal rain. He remembers his son’s adaptation to the change. Day after day, the boy would come and stand at the large living room window and just watch the rain, hoping that one day the sun would shine. Finally, my friend took him aside and quietly suggested that maybe he needed to change his strategy. Instead of waiting for the day when the sun would shine, perhaps he needed to learn how to play in the rain. It is a challenge for all of us. We have dreams and things that we want to accomplish, but inside, we are waiting for that day when the sun is going to shine and make all our wishes come true.

The Psalmist is experiencing a time of rain. Things are not going as he wishes. He wants the sun to shine, and so he cries out to God. He wants God to hear his complaint. And maybe, if God heard, then things would change. And there is no doubt that God does change our reality. Sometimes, as a direct result of our prayers, the sun does shine.

But sometimes, God’s answer is to our prayers is to pull us aside and teach what it means to live within the rain. Because no matter what the problem might be that we are experiencing in the “now,” there always seems to be another storm cloud gathering on the horizon that is bringing with it the next unsolvable problem. And, sometimes, our best testimony is to say, “see how God moved and changed my reality.” But more often, our best witness is that we have learned to live within the rain, still depending on God.

Life is out of our control. And there is nothing new in that statement. We know that. But sometimes, instead of asking God to bring out the sun, we need to simply ask him to help us as we live within the rain. We need to request from God the strength to live within the storm that we are experiencing right now, and the one which is just coming over the horizon.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Psalm 104