LIVE IN HIS SUNSHINE

I'm writing for Five Minute Friday, and today's prompt word is SUNSHINE.

It's winter here in Australia and it was very frosty this morning when I ventured outside.  

I missed my usual morning walk with my neighbour and when I noticed how crisp the ground was, I wasn't as disappointed as I might have been.  

I was up before the sun was visible here, but I didn't see it rise because I was inside, near the fire. 

I sometimes go for a drive really early, alone, to a high spot, so I can watch the sun come up, slowly, and the darkness slowly turn to light.    

But even the beauty of the early morning sunshine is nothing compared to the full sunshine in the middle of a cold, wintry day.   

It's a beautiful day out there now, plenty of sunshine on this cold day.    

It's drawn me outside today, when really I should have been inside doing lots of paperwork and school prep.    The sunshine has been too lovely to ignore, after such a frosty start.    I found some outside jobs just so I could be out in it.  

I even found an excuse to go for a walk in it, to the local shops, instead of driving, to make up for my slack start.  

It reminds me that we need to walk in the sunshine - no, we need to live in the sunshine.   We don't need to stay inside, stuck in our busyness, and miss out on the benefits of being out in it.  

I preached a sermon once on the health benefits of sunshine.    While writing it, I learnt that sunshine is very healing for very many physical ailments.   I remember when my mother was living with us and suffering from a huge ulcer on her leg, I tried many times to get her into the sunshine because I knew it would help.   Sadly, she wouldn't have it because something so simple just couldn't possibly work.  

I have learnt over time that God's presence is very healing for what ails our souls, whether it's fear, guilt, grief, shame, disappointment, anger, unforgiveness, pain, self-pity, despair.   

Whatever it is, God's presence is what warms us, brings light (revelation, wisdom, clarity), brings healing in ways that we just don't understand, nor need to.   Sadly, like my mother, we often resist His light and presence in our lives, for many reasons.    

It's so easy to stay out of His presence, to keep things hidden away, because it's hard to face them.   It's easy to keep the dark things in the dark, to not want God to touch those things that are painful, to not want to hear the truth of how it really is, to be too busy or distracted to just sit with Him.   It's easy to do that.   It's hard to bring it out into the sunshine.  It's hard to agree to let Him have those things that hold us and keep us stuck inside.    My mother didn't want to sit in the sunshine because it was inconvenient, painful, hot and too simple a solution to possibly be effective.    

Do we do the same?   Do we ignore the simple pleasure of sitting in His presence?   Do we forgo the healing He offers because we're too clever for that?   

God be merciful to us and bless us,

And cause His face to shine upon us, Selah  Ps 67:1

The Lord led me to this verse this morning.   He often does.    When His face shines upon us, we are blessed and healed and restored in profound ways, because all of who He is filters down to us, likes the rays of sunshine.     

Just this week, His mere presence has healed something in me that has been broken for a while, that seems to have no easy answer, and yet, just being in His presence is easing the rawness, clearing the debris, shining a light on the shadows, and allowing rest and restoration.   How?  I don't know.   But I don't need to know how it works to benefit from it.      

I don't need to understand how sunshine works to enjoy it and benefit from it.   I don't need to understand it all to sit in His presence, or to just sit in the sunshine.  I just need to not be 'too clever' or 'too busy' for such simple things.  

Surely I have calmed and quieted my soul, Like a weaned child with his mother; Like a weaned child is my soul within me.  Ps 131:2

You will show me the path of life;

In Your presence is fullness of joy;

At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.   Ps 16:11

Oh, Lord, You're beautiful

Your face is all I seek

For when Your eyes are on this child

Your grace abounds to me

Oh, Lord, You're beautiful

Your face is all I seek

For when Your eyes are on this child

Your grace abounds to me