Revelation 3:17 – For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing. (RSV)

One recent evening, just before sunset, dark clouds started moving in fast. In just a few minutes, the whole sky had changed from blue to black. Then, all of a sudden, the lightning started, first a few rolling flashes that seemed to light up the entire sky, then those huge forked veins of light, which strike from the highest point in the sky, right to the ground. There's so much power that some of the lightning bolts split apart, desperate to reach the ground more quickly. For a few scary moments, they were everywhere, like the grand finale of a fireworks show. One bolt hit a large tree just 30 yards from our front porch, where my wife and I watched, and hid. Half a dozen large chunks of wood shot into the yard, with a thunder bang so loud that it made us jump. Then, it all moved on, rolling eastward, as we watched for another half-hour until it was gone.

Life is like that sometimes, isn't it? Our whole world seems to come apart, like it isn't held together solidly any more, and one wonders what — if anything — in our lives will be left standing. Then the storm passes, and the calm comes, and things return almost to what they were before, except something is different. We're different, because we've witnessed all that chaos, and come out on the other side, still alive, knowing that God carried us through it all! We are in the hands of God, never left alone for a moment, yet so tiny, so weak, but so loved. Perhaps that's why life's storms are allowed to come, because they force us to see that God is always there, even if we failed to notice Him when things were all blue sky and sunshine, and we began to say, "We need nothing."

Prayer: Let us be humbled, Lord, when we become proud. Let us seem small, Lord, rather than large in our own eyes. Let us appear foolish, Lord, rather than try to fool You. Let us seem weak, Lord, rather than strong in our own power. Amen.

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