I am sitting in a comfortable chair, and the sun is shinning on me.  It is warm, bright, encouraging, renewing, and did I say bright?  It has been a while since I sat in the sun like this.  I am enjoying it, and it promises that today it will actually warm up outside.  So I will being going out there to clean some winter messes up that have been left undone for a while.  Branches mostly, from the winter wind storms. 

The thing that is speaking to my heart today, is that each day the sun is always shinning, its just that there are often clouds and fog between us and the brightness of the sun.   I have been blessed to travel on jets that climb up to 35 or 40 thousand feet and have never failed to see the sun up there. I have taken off on a runway that is wet, under dark cloudy skies and the contrast is absolutely amazing when we get on top of the cloud cover.  Yes, the sun shines each and every day, even when we don't have the bright and warm blessing of it shinning on us.  

The same is true for the reality that the Lord is always reigning and ruling, always upon His glorious throne, always aware of what touches our lives, always in love with us, always everything that He has declared Himself to be everywhere and at all times.   Its just that we aren't always aware of the brilliance and glory of His dominion.  Sometimes we are more aware of circumstances than we are of the God of all our circumstances.  Sometimes we are more alert to what is going wrong than what is going right.  Sometimes our feelings betray the reality that God is taking care of what we can't care of ourselves.  

But today the sun is shinning, and I am glad that the Lord can shine through into our lives even in the dark places.  God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.  I am so glad that His word is a light for us to walk in.  I am so glad that there are wonderful times and moments in our lives that we are hyper aware of Him.  And whether I am or not, He is aware of me.  We can find rest, warmth and encouragement today in knowing these things.  If we set our hearts on things above and not on things below we will have more and more of the brightness of His glory in and through our lives.  

And what about those winter messes.  A lot easier to handle in the sunshine.