Do you ever get tired of being a sinner?  Do you want to run or escape who you are?  Sometimes my failures begin to overwhelm me and I want to hide or run away.

Today as I was talking with the Lord, struggling with being overwhelmed, He told me to look at the clouds.  It wasn’t a clear day, where the blue sky dominates and the sun touches every exposed place. (You know, He could have kept His world crystal clear if He hadn’t created mankind.  Yet, He did and revealed how long-suffering and patient He really is.)

It was a chilly and misty morning as the rain hung off in the distance and threatened to come closer.  In the sky immediately above, the thin clouds were shifting and adjusting, nearly becoming translucent.  Filtering through them was the light of the sun.  The rays were bold and touched the tops of the trees, yet they were defined by the composition of the clouds.  Where the clouds were thickest, the sun would not shine through.  Yet as they yielded to the wind and were swept away, the sunbeams tenderly and gracefully made themselves known.

Watching the sunlight filter through the clouds gives me hope that He will continue to radiate His own glory through my life.  Though I am unable to be as sinless as a clear cloudless day, as I want to be, He is as faithfully present as the sun steadfastly shines behind the clouds.  His love and tender presence is unwavering.  By the Spirit of Christ in me, He constantly and continually is filling every space behind the clouds that is unseen; every dark place where I have yet to yield and allow Him to shine through. 

As circumstances and my own failures begin to discourage me, I can look to Him in faith, knowing that He will gently thin and part the clouds that hinder His glory so that He can radiantly shine though in new places.  Until one day, I see Him face to face and will be transformed so that there is no barrier to His glory.  I will experience His glory unhindered as the sun radiates on a cloudless, sun filled day.