It was my last full day in the Philippines, and I wanted to spend some time with Jesus. I grabbed my Bible and notebook and started walking up the four flights of stairs to the prayer room.
I mentioned this room in another blog– it is small and cozy and the glass walls allow you to gaze down at the impoverished neighborhoods around you or look out at the beautiful Manila skyline in the distance. Both views quickly inspire prayer.
As I sunk into the small couch and settled in to be with my Father, I had no idea I’d spend the next three hours in that place. I read my Bible, I prayed, I journaled, I sang, and I even curled up on the couch and napped here and there.
In the three hours I was there, I experienced and expressed to God a wide range of emotions– hunger, contentment, frustration, gratitude, confusion, clarity, peace, and more.
As my emotions changed and changed again throughout the afternoon, so did my view of the city.
When I first sat down, the sun was a blinding white and its heat rays beat down on my little glass box.
Then, heavy gray clouds rolled in, slowly obscuring the sun. At first, the sun still peeked through from time to time, but before long, it was impossible to see any signs of its light behind the clouds. The sky was cloaked in gray, and heavy rains began to fall in sheets.
I curled up, enjoying the relief from the heat, listening to the rain hit tin roofs, and watching water droplets roll across the windows in front of me. I felt as if I were resting in God’s own living room during the rainstorm.
After some time had passed, the clouds cleared once more. The sun was larger now and it seemed to pick up speed in its path to the horizon. The color was softer than it had been hours before, morphing from white to yellow to red.
Friends gathered around me to watch the final descent. Bit by bit, the sun melted into the skyline, and we all watched intently until the final dot of light disappeared beyond the horizon.
Before long, the sky grew dark and the only remaining light came from the twinkling windows of skyscrapers in the city.
As I watched the sky change throughout the day, I realized that the sun itself never changes. The molecular structure, the high temperatures, the way in which it produces heat and light– the essence of the sun remains unchanged.
What changes is our perspective of the sun. Sometimes it is high and bright and hot in the sky. Sometimes it is cloaked in clouds or shielded by heavy rains. Other times it is large and low and changing colors. Still other times, it is beyond the horizon, completely invisible to our eyes.
Despite whether or not we see it and how it appears to us at any given moment, the sun is the sun is the sun. It is always there and it does not change.
As I went through one emotion after another in that prayer room, my perspective of God changed and shifted much like my view of the sun. Sometimes He was Father, sometimes He was Friend, sometimes He was Provider, sometime He was Hope, and sometimes He was Peace. At other times, I couldn’t see or feel Him at all. He seemed distant. My view of Him was clouded by my questions and uncertainties.
No matter my view of Him, though, He was still God, and He remained unchanged. God is God is God. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He is dependable, trustworthy, righteous, holy, compassionate, loving, just, faithful, wise, all knowing, and all powerful. All the time.
Despite how my current circumstances or emotions shape my view of God, He is always the same, and He is always worthy of my praise. May I grow ever more into a woman who worships, trusts, and respects Him in every season and at every moment, no matter where the sun sits in the sky.
What about you? What season of life are you in? How is it shaping your view of God? Take a moment to spend some time in the Word and remind yourself of who God is– all the time. He is unchanging and ever present, and He loves you dearly.
Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.
James 1:17
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
Hebrews 13:8
…surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.
Matthew 28:20b
I the Lord do not change.
Malachi 3:6a
