Faithfulness surrounds you. Everywhere I look I see it, starting with the sunrise. The darkness gives way to the breaking light. The sky brightens and then becomes fully seen. It may be cloudy or a brilliant azure blue, it is still infused with the light of day. It breaks through the morning and rises in the sky warming the air and touching the buds on the flowers. It crosses over the heights of the mountains and rises above them. It cannot be contained even behind a dense fog or a cloud filled sky. He is faithful in the sunrise.
In the beginning, God separated the day and the night giving them both a name. He gave us the night so we can rest from our labors, but also to provide a canvas for the stars. Sometimes the line between His and our existence is so thin. I remember the first time I experienced the northern lights. It filled the entire sky over Lake Mendota in Wisconsin. I was so awestruck I thought He was going to speak. Other times, He launches the moon as a sliver then brings it to fullness playing with the waves on the beach, then settling into the horizon as day breaks.
Just as God is faithful everyday to bring the sunrise after the night, He is faithful with our lives. He has a plan for your life, one with a hope and a future. He has good works already laid out for you to walk in.* Sound familiar?
He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it.* But first He wants your heart and your thoughts. He wants your life to be His. And He will be faithful to complete it, but you need to keep your eyes focused on Him. A flower stalk pushes skyward, a tree goes toward the heavenlies because it searches for the sunlight, its sustenance. We’ve been planted somewhere. We grow and bloom. But we need the light of the Son as well as the sun to do so.
When I look at the path I walk each morning, everything I see is in a stage of becoming. A green shoot grows for months upward and one day buds appear. The next day petals begin unfurling, the day after, the petals spread out to expose the crown. I believe it is His faithfulness to complete things that we see illustrated all around us, to remind us that we too grow and flourish in Him. He has a plan for us to grow and to bloom.
Everything in creation reflects His perfect faithfulness. As winter winds down, we know and expect spring will come because we’ve seen every year that it does. We know summer follows spring with its riot of color and blossoms on plants. And we know that the trees will soon be a rainbow of gold, russet and red before they cover the ground around us. Imagine what it would be like if we saw the leaves falling, the trees naked in the cold and that was it! Imagine if we did not know, could not count on His faithfulness that spring would come. That hope springs from within us because we know that He is faithful.
We count on this faithfulness to live. But how often do we doubt Him? How often do we start thinking maybe this time is different, this time He might not be as faithful? He might just leave me on my own. How often do we worry instead? Worry can become like a fog around us, blurring the edges and making us wonder if we will see the light break through and find a solution to our thoughts. But even within the fog, there is always a light on in God’s house for us.
Look around you. His faithfulness is demonstrated everywhere you look. Pause to count and remember the times He has been faithful. Then meditate on the fact that His faithfulness surrounds, envelopes and radiates from Him, just like the sun. Next time you doubt Him, go check the buds on the flowers in your garden. Watch the stars slowly appear at night. Feel the wind caress your face. Savor the fragrance after a rain. Did all this just occur by happenstance? No. It happens because He is faithful. Just as He wants the flowers and trees to bloom, He wants you to bloom. If you feel lost, spend some time in silence just listening for His voice. Spend some time marveling at His attributes, tell Jesus how you really feel. Ask the Holy Spirit to wrap His arms around you. Ask Him to show you the sheepfold, come in and rest. Then listen for His quiet voice in the morning. It’s there. Shhh. Do you hear it?
“Your love, LORD, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies.”
Psalm 36:5 NIV
*Jeremiah 29:11; Philippians 1:6, Ephesians 2:10
