What is Coming

Hard times full of trouble are always coming.  Some come slowly like a rumbling noise beyond the edge of the horizon that dumps lightning and fury on our heads.  And, others come in earthquake fashion shaking our lives to the core before we even have time to name the chaos.  None of this comes as a surprise to those who have read the Word enough to know about Job and what Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount where He said that the rain, wind, and floods come to the just and the unjust.      

Hard times just come.  There is no way to live and avoid them.   The time to ready ourselves for them is not in the moment of their arrival as sometimes there is no warning.  The time to ready ourselves is in the moment when the air seems absent of trouble.  One of the ways we surely ready ourselves is in the ongoing times of choosing to be in the presence of the Almighty One of Creation.    

It is not that we necessarily receive verbal warnings about what is to come, or instructions about what to do, but that we come to an awareness of not being alone.  Our ongoing connection with God joins us with the One who is not surprised by what comes to us and Who is always able to deliver us from the power of any trouble.  It is that holy presence in the ordinary moments that are emptied of the trouble which give us confidence that He will being us out of any dark trouble to the joy of life which waits on the other side.