The Sun Will Shine on You Again

Captain Sir Tom Moore died recently at the age of 100 after having raised over 32 million pounds for the UK’s National Health Service during the coronavirus pandemic. He’s been hailed as a national treasure and an inspiration to many. During an interview regarding the pandemic, he assured listeners that we will get through this and that, “the sun will shine on you again and the clouds will go away.” But I wonder, does it feel like that’s the case as you read this today?

So often the darkness of today can rob us of knowing any real sense of joy. No matter who you are - whether good, bad, Christian or not - you will experience cloudy days where anything remotely happy seems a long way off. Christians aren’t given special immunity to escape the painful experiences of this life, so how can we claim to have joy even when life is hard?

For Christians, real joy is deeper than temporary happiness. Being happy is often conditional on circumstances, people and mood, whereas joy is a characteristic developed inside a person. One is controlled by the outside forces of the world we live in and the other by the Spirit of God, living inside a person.

The psalmist writes ‘weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning’ and one of the great reasons we can be a people of joy is because we know what the morning looks like. We know that God is good and no matter what happens in this world, He is still in control and has a masterplan to renew all things. His anger is momentary compared to His favour. He is bringing His love and light even into the darkest of realities and we see that most clearly on the cross. This doesn’t mean we belittle or ignore the sadness and loss we experience now, but it does mean we have our hope fixed in something much stronger and eternal. The best is always yet to come for those who follow Jesus.

Today, take the time to pray that God would reveal the joy of the morning to you, where God’s love outlasts even the most tragic night. May that truth flow from within you, that you might be known as a person of joy and like Captain Sir Tom Moore, you will know that “the sun will shine on you again.”