The weather in Texas can change fast. As these photos I took one winter day at my office demonstrate. In the above photo, the morning was cold with snow. Then the afternoon was sunny and warm as in this second photo shows. Our relationship with God can change fast too.

Reading in 2 Samuel 21, there was a famine for three years in Israel. This drove David to seek God who told David that it was because of the way Saul had treated the Gibeonites. God’s wrath was upon them because of the broken covenant of peace between the Gibeonites and the house of Saul.

David wanted to make everything right with the Gibeonites so he asked what they wanted for atonement. They wanted seven of Saul’s descendants who they killed and then exposed their bodies on a hill (vv. 8-9).

As we read in the Old Testament, we see many times how actions of past generations take their toll on future generations. It’s the same in modern times. I remember hearing from Paul Harvey’s – If I were the Devil and how the devil keeps us in cold dark times with drugs, violence, and low morals. It may start with little things and year by year it leads to bigger things. Then God is taken out of the schoolhouse, the courthouse, and the houses of congress. A nation is then at war with itself, and the media is fanning the flames.

To get things right, there has to be atonement and reformation. For us today, these are found in the blood of Christ Jesus. When Christ paid the debt, all the negatives were cleared, and a positive future was assured.

In today’s passage, David and his men won victory after victory once David made things right. We can do the same and change our world from a cold dark place into one of optimism by simply getting things right with God. This day with God, we are relying on the power of the Holy Spirit rather than our own wisdom and are looking forward to amazing things happening as difficulties become simplicities because of this power.

Lord, we have good days and bad days, but we know that You can take tough situations and turn them into something positive. Out of intense difficulties, You can make simplicities emerge because Your Son warms our heart. He went to the cross for our sake to reconcile us to You and we have the power of the Holy Spirit to change a cold dark day into a sunny warm day. Amen