Earlier this week, my wife was looking for some information in some of her old emails, and she came across a copy of Encouragement From the Word from almost five years ago. She sent it back to me, and I thought it would be a good word to share again. And for those of you who haven’t been reading Encouragement for at least five years, it’ll be new for you! The message is still applicable. (And my wife is still my sunshine.) Read on.
In my Neck Of The Woods, yesterday was just a dark, damp day. From sunrise to sunset, the colour of the sky never seemed to change. It would have been easy to slip into a funk just because of the weather. And I spent half the day on the road, so I saw quite a lot of the sky.
I got home at suppertime and remarked on this to my wife, who immediately smiled and said, “But now you’re home with your sunshine!”
I grinned. She was right. It was all I could do to refrain from breaking into a Stevie Wonder song at that moment. Diana is my sunshine.
It would be possible to leave the thought right there, and encourage every reader to embrace his or her spouse and be grateful for that “sunshine”. But what about those who have no spouse, or those whose relationship with the spouse is not all it could or should be? Does that mean that on dank days, there is no sunshine?
Hardly.
The Bible says, “For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows favour and honour; no good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless” (Psalm 84.11, NIV). See? The Lord himself is our sun and our shield: he is both the light of our day and the protector of our lives. And as we grow in holiness, and walk honestly with God, he delights in showering us with all good things.
How long will that last? Well, in Revelation 22.4-5, this is what John sees among those who serve the Lord: “They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever” (NIV).
The sun is shining on my face as I write this, and I am grateful for its warmth.. But when the sun disappears behind the clouds, and even on the days when my wife doesn’t much feel like the sunshine she is to me, the Lord will be my light.
And yours.
