January 8, 2021
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Every once in a while the sun just decides to take a vacation for a few days. Not too long ago, we had one of those stretches of weather when we didn't see the old boy for the better part of a week. It was just like one rainy day after another. Everyone around here and everything around here was soaked. I was running into our headquarters one morning on a day like that, as one of my co-workers was, and we were both trying to avoid getting drenched in the process. I made some comment about the relentless rain, but he was looking at a little bigger picture than I was. Remembering last summer's withering drought, he said, "This is going to be good for us later on."
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "When the Rain Just Won't Stop."
You might be going through one of those seasons in your life when the "rain" never seems to stop. It's been stress, bad news, struggle, disappointment, grief, confusion. We all take our turn facing those seasons when we keep waking up to another rainy day.
Our word for today from the Word of God has been, for 2,000 years, a bright light for dark days. The well-worn words of Romans 8:28 have helped millions of believers see a bigger picture when it seemed as if it would never stop raining. As familiar as you might be with these words, they may literally have your name on them for this particular season of your life. So, listen to them with your heart; "We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose."
One great saint described Romans 8:28 as "a soft pillow for a long night." I hope you will let it be that for you. Because it gives you God's ironclad assurance that there is meaning in what you're going through; there is a holy purpose for God either sending or allowing those things in your life. His purpose for our dark times is seldom explained, but it's always there. It doesn't say everything is good. No, it says everything is being worked together for good. For your good, if you're one of those "who love Him."
So you can say, no matter how many days it's been raining, "This is going to be good for us later on." God simply wouldn't let this happen if it wasn't going to be good for you later on. Romans 8:29 tells us that the ultimate good God is going to bring out of this is to make you more like His Son. I believe God shapes and allows the circumstances to come into your life that will best develop some quality of Jesus in us. There's nothing greater God could do for you than to plant in you the way Jesus loves people, the way Jesus treats people, the way Jesus is patient with people, the way Jesus understands what a hurting person is going through, and this kind of bondedness is what Jesus had with His Father.
And that may take a lot of rainy days for God to make you the man or woman He created you to be and redeemed you to be. He's toughening you, or maybe He's tenderizing you, purging you of old ways of doing things, squeezing you into new and better priorities, sensitizing you to people that maybe you've hurt or neglected, moving you to burn some old bridges or to treat some old wounds. What gets you through the rainy days is the calm assurance that "God is working all this together for my good to make a better me."
Are you going to enjoy one rainy day after another? Not necessarily. But it sure helps to see them in the big picture perspective. God is using these days to prepare you for better days ahead. So if you got up this morning and found that it was raining again, lean hard on Romans 8:28 and say, with all the confidence of a blood-bought child of God, "This is going to be very good for us later on."