[Note: This blog was spared from a cleanup of my local congregational website.]

This morning, as I was driving near downtown Portland on my way to work, I saw a glorious red sky, which reminded me of a rhyme that I learned as a child: “Red sky at night, sailor’s delight. Red sky at morning, sailor take warning.” Of course, I had a grandfather who had been in the Coast Guard for two decades, so that would prompt sailing references in my childhood more than would usually be the case for most children growing up in the country. As it happened, given that it was a rainy drive home from work across town and the weather promises to be rainy most of the week, that particular poem was rather accurate in discerning the sign of the skies.

Of course, such sayings are not original to our day. During the time of Jesus Christ, such sayings were in common currency as well, as it is written in Matthew:16:1-4: “Then the Pharisees and Sadducees came, and testing Him asked that He would show them a sign from heaven. He answered and said to them, “When it is evening you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red’; and in the morning, ‘It will be foul weather today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ Hypocrites! You know how to discern the face of the sky, but you cannot discern the signs of the times. A wicked and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign shall be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.” And He left them and departed.”

How is it that we can discern the signs of the times? Often people study and seek to be proficient in prophecy to see the signs of the times. In so doing, they seem to be attracted to those aspects of prophecy that provide certainty in an uncertain world, and that would seem to promise God working quickly to solve the difficulties that we face in this life. We may see times as threatening to us and think that they are therefore significant on the grand scheme of affairs, and these thoughts are often mistaken, since they are often subjective and self-serving.

A more accurate understanding of how God works in prophecy is written in Lamentations:3:22-27: “Through the Eternal’s mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; Great is your faithfulness. “The Eternal is my portion,” says my soul, “Therefore I hope in Him!” The Eternal is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him. It is good that one should hope and wait quietly for the salvation of the Eternal. It is good for a man to bear the yoke in His youth.” Let us do our best to hope and wait quietly for God’s salvation, and to bear the yokes that He calls on us to bear, while we seek to discern the times that we live in as best as we can.