About daylight as I was coming back from the prayer tower, I passed our old gardener. He has been here with Old Pisgah for a great many years. He had just turned a water sprinkler on in a bed of ferns at the foot of a young avocado tree and was now busy sweeping the walks with his date-palm broom.
It was a little darker than usual this morning due to a night time coastal fog that at this time of year, creeps inland as far as these foothills of the San Gabriel mountain range.
He looked at me with a glad smile and pointed up at the fog and said, “ I’m glad it’s back. I won’t have to water so much now. Too much sunshine is not good.” Those words, “too much sunshine”, seemed to stay with me and from them I have drawn my thought for today.
God, our all-wise heavenly Father, knows what is best. He is intensely interested in our personal lives. We are only subjected to that which is the best for us. Sometimes this is difficult for us to understand for we love the sunshine.
We have come to consider as our enemy all but the beautiful sunshine, but somehow I believe this is the farthest from the truth. Perhaps that which we felt was cruel and unnecessary was after all the best that could happen to us.
Perhaps God has seen we have had too much sunshine and that our lives need to be tempered a bit more, so He sends the clouds. Here in Southern California we have much sunshine. Perhaps too much, for around us for many miles in every direction we have a barren desert, with it’s sage brush, greasewood, mesquite, juniper and cactus.
Even the beautiful city of Los Angeles, were it not for man’s ingenuity, would be a barren waste where little that is worth while could ever grow. Water, which is the life blood of this part of the country, comes to us through many long miles of aqueduct and tunnels through the mountain ranges.
Too much sunshine? Yes, I am convinced, as our old gardener told me this morning, “too much sunshine is not good.”
God knows our needs for He knows our weakness and frailty. He greatly desires that we find the best in life as well as being our best for others, so He permits the clouds to come. We cannot see the sun shining at times but we know it is still there above that great bank of clouds and fog.
We feel the chill and damp of the night and draw back from it and sometimes fail to see it a blessing in disguise.
Good days, pleasant associations, kind friends, perfect health, freedom from want; all these things delight our souls, but I wonder if they are not just like the sunshine of a pleasant day.
We shouldn’t only want to enjoy things, we should desire to bless the world by our presence. For this reason we must at times enter into the dark experiences of life, Please believe me, real character is eternal and God is interested in seeing that it is nurtured and developed.
Too much sunshine, too many good days, and we become careless with our living. Let the clouds come and we turn to God, receiving from Him that which will cause men to believe and be benefited by our counsel and life.
Though we may enjoy the sunshine with it’s light and warmth that is so pleasing to the flesh, let us welcome the cloudy, dark days, for in these we grow.
Too much sunshine? I don’t think we need to fear that we will have too much in these days for God’s judgments are in the earth; and through the clouds, through this darkness men are learning righteousness.
Thank God for anything that may bring into our lives the righteousness of God. My Brother, my sister, the world is searching for God. They expect to to find Him in your life.
When our lives have become tempered by clouds and sunshine, cold and heat, trouble and peace, joy and sorrow, sickness and then health, God is manifested in the lives of all true believers and men come to understand His ways. Thank God, He knows best.
I may be speaking to those who are passing through some cloudy days. Perhaps you have been bereaved. Perhaps sorrow has come into your life or into your home. Perhaps you are not in as good health as you used to be. Somehow you wonder about it all.
Many times I have been so glad for that wonderful scripture, “All things work together for good to them that love God”. All things; did you understand that? All things work for good to those that love the Lord.
Let us not blame God because things are not better for us. Let us not complain about circumstances or surroundings. Let us rather rejoice because it is just a time of clouds, fog, dampness or dark and it will soon pass away. It comes to us just to bring out the best within our lives. God certainly loves us. I am sure of that.
There is not a doubt in my mind but that I serve a great loving heavenly father. He has proved it to me many times. One day He sent Jesus to die for my sins and transgressions and to bring me into this place of life and hope. I am so glad because I know the Lord. I wonder if you know Him, if you don’t know Him you will never understand the clouds.
You will never understand the things that oppose and beset men. But once you come to know Jesus, and once you begin to understand somewhat of the mystery of the cross of calvary, you will begin to understand why it is necessary for the cloudy dark days to come. In that day we will not constantly question why the cold, icy winds sweep over our unprotected souls.
Jesus was the Christ of calvary and as He went the way before us, His steps led him to the cross. But there he found God in a new way and there He opened up a way for all men into the presence of His Father. We enjoy life today because Jesus was willing to go through that cloudy, dark day.
May the Lord help us to see that too much sunshine is not good and may we be willing, like the old gardener, to rejoice when the clouds come. may it never be said of us that we have had, “too much sunshine.”
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