Mostly Cloudy...Slight Chance of Nothing

I don't know if you're like me, but if I go so many days without seeing the sun I start to lose it. Not that "I sure would like to go to the beach feeling" but a serious mental/emotional meltdown. Yes, I've been told to remember that the "sun's still up there, it's just hidden by the clouds". To this, I have come up with no tactful response. Other than to say, "So what?"

Life can be awfully cloudy. What I mean is, there are so many things that we can run after, succumb to, or fall in love with that begin to darken our skies. We don't even realize it at the time - that we're becoming sun-starved and our heart is becoming more pasty white than our skin ever has. This tendency typically leads us to the place we refer to as the valley. And as we all can attest, we'd rather not go to the valley.

But here is the importance of visiting such low places every once-in-awhile: the valley is where I am quickly reminded that anything and everything else other than Jesus Christ is a hailstorm waiting to happen. A cloudy day will seem like paradise compared to the place we're led when we start driving off into the sunset thinking that there could possibly be some satisfaction out there outside of Him. Save yourself the pain and agony. That place doesn't exist!

Some of us are led into the valley by Christ - He takes us there to strip us, refine us, and to burn something into our hearts. Maybe He wants us to know a fraction of what He must have felt during 40 days in the desert and the temptation during and immediately following. I won't dare speculate on all the reasons why God leads us there, other than to say His desire is that we exit the valley different than we entered it. Yet, some of us find ourselves in these places because we've fallen in love with things of lesser value...or even fallen asleep. The response to this is simple: WAKE UP!
"Awake, O sleeper, and rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you." (Ephesians 5:14)

Yes, the sun is still there behind the clouds. But I say, "So what?" Go where you have to go - do what you've got to do - to get your face back into the sun. We weren't made to live in the dark.