We have a human tendency to take the blessings of God for granted, especially when all is well. Then, calamity, trials, and tribulations strike our lives from different directions; one trouble after another. We experience puzzling, painful, and difficult losses, tragedies, setbacks, debilitating health issues, accidents, and devastations of all sorts. In just moments, years of tranquility and well-being are eaten away and gone. Left in the wake, are many years of challenges and awkward adaptations. Our reactions to calamity, trials, and tribulations are normally cynical and despairing. We begin to believe that our lives will never again be restored. We wonder, will goodness and gladness ever rain on me again?
The good news is that God’s nature is to restore the broken hearts and crushed spirits of those who seek Him. God does this by showering us with a new spiritual perception of his goodness and grace in the midst of our calamity. Restoration can come to us, even when it looks impossible – even after devastation lingers long – even after we become accepting and accustomed to it. God says, “I will restore to you the years...” Sometimes the restoration doesn’t come back in exactly the same way to us, but it does return. We have to remember that God blessed us with abundant rains of blessings in the past, and, that God will bless us with abundant rains of blessings in the future. In the meantime, we rejoice and give thanks because God’s plentiful rains of restoration will come, sooner or later.
If you find yourself in a season of calamity, trial, or tribulation this Thanksgiving, seek God’s restoring grace with patience, faith, hope, and thanksgiving. If you are enjoying abundance in your life, then don’t take your abundance for granted. Acknowledge God in all you do and with what you have. As you have been blessed, bless someone else. This Thanksgiving, allow God to use you to rain blessings on someone who is patiently and prayerfully waiting for latter rains.
Blessings, Rev. Ruben Saenz, Jr.
