…rocked lazily enjoying the soft sunlight of the Mexican harbor of Acapulco. As I sat on the veranda of my hotel room, sick as a dog, I dreamed of having a yacht like that, relaxing on its sun drenched deck going from port to port. Life would be great! A few days later I returned to “sunny” California – and reality. Friends of mine had just returned from Baja in their huge 4 bedroom yacht. I met them on the Delta a few weeks later; they looked scared as a jack rabbit. Yes, it was luxurious, but …!
They seem to be saying that seaglass seas, blue skies and soft sunlight are the cruel deceit of those who think everything will be hunky-dory. ‘Taint so. On the way back to their dock in California all hell broke loose in the Pacific. They thought they were going to die.
“God has not promised skies always blue,
Flower-strewn pathways all our lives through;
God has not promised sun without rain,
Joy without sorrow, peace without pain.
“But God has promised strength for the day,
Rest for the labor, light for the way,
Grace for the trials, help from above,
Unfailing kindness, undying love.”
(Annie Johnson Flint)
O my friend, on this day of tragedy in Las Vegas, it brings us to lean with humble submission on the One who knew what suffering truly means and with the Apostle Paul we can say,
“For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Romans 8:36-39 (kjv) is
Write It On My Heart 