Giants in the Yard!

One of the first things I do each morning is to pull the drapes in the dining room and lift the blinds over the two windows in the living room.  Then after the coffee is brewing and I’ve got all of Piper’s meds ready for her, I’ll shuffle back into the bedroom.  Once there, as I’ve mentioned before, I’ll sing my wife a soft and funny wake-up song while I open up the blinds in the corner of the room. 

If you’re a regular reader of this blog you’ll know just how much I like the natural light glowing throughout our home!  But I would much rather open up the curtains and blinds to a sun-shiny day than to a grey overcast one like what greeted us today!  The sun finally broke through this morning about 10:00 AM as I was preparing my breakfast and as soon as I caught a glimpse of the bright rays from the corner of my eye, it was like a jolt of electricity went through me.  With the sudden brightening outside, I felt encouraged and recharged and began to grasp a more positive vision of everything that I needed to do today.

Whew!  It was kind of incredible.  The clear, warming and bright rays of the sun quickly transformed everything in our front and back yards from black and white images that looked a bit dull and gloomy into a joyful scene that is in the process of bursting out with its spring-infused new life!  And because the sun was high enough in the sky there were very few shadows to distort the true beauty of what my eyes were beholding.

On a clear day the first early morning sun that I see is still low in the eastern skies and cast some dark, looming shadows as its rays pass through our neighbor’s pine trees on the east side of the yard.  After the hurricane passed through our area a couple of years ago, that first morning glance with the dark looming shadows combined with the branches and everything else that wasn’t tied down that the high winds had strewn all over the yard made it look like we had giants stomping through our property!

Well you know… God’s Word also talks about shadows in James 1:17.  The leader of the church in Jerusalem wrote: “Every good present and every perfect gift comes from above, from the Father who made the sun, moon, and stars. The Father doesn't change like the shifting shadows produced by the sun and the moon.” (God’s Word © Hummm… there’s those stars again! – See yesterday's post “Night Lights”)

It would seem that God knows how shadows caused by the passing sun can shift or change throughout the course of a day and can even serve to distort the reality of whatever the object that is casting the shadow really is.  Sort of like the giants (ie; pine trees) that I saw in the yard in that post-hurricane morning view!

As I dwelt on this particular line of thought the other morning, I deduced that the writer of the verse was trying to convey the idea that God’s Word does NOT change in difference to the shifting shadows we encounter daily.  His Word does not distort the truth because… IT IS THE TRUTH!  It is the one thing that actually gives us life as the very next verse in James 1:18 tells us.  His Word is the only substance known to man that breathes life into the situations of our lives… WOW!  Think on that for a moment!

So… no matter what you might see changing right before your very eyes, you can rest assured that God’s Word WON’T be a part of it.  For it doesn’t change but stays as the rock-solid foundation that you can safely anchor your life to.  Therefore when problems arise - the first thing to do is to search through His Word, as found in your Bibles, and with the prayerful guidance of the Holy Spirit, find scriptures that apply to your situation, write them down and commit them to memory – and then STAND on them by concentrating your vision as well as your confession on what God says and take NO stock with the shifting shadows that are constantly changing around you!

I’ll warn you ahead of time though, that this process is not always easy especially when things in the natural seem to be getting worse… BUT I encourage you to stick with it and eventually you’ll see those things that are parading around as giants in your land shrink back into a shape that looks a lot like God’s victory for you!

Have a great rest of the week, and as you do, keep asking yourself… “What TRUTH am I expecting to SEE today?”