so i was just taking rosie to school and she and i were riding down the road, came to a stop sign, turned right...
and when we turned we were then facing the most gorgeous sunrise right before our eyes.
and she says...
“wow, you can be going down a regular road, make one turn and run smack dab into a sunrise.”
she is a philosopher for sure.
and it all reminded me of something i read in ann graham lotz’s GOD’S STORY: finding meaning for your life through Genesis ... which made me LOVE the book of Genesis in a totally new way. it showed me that EVERYTHING that God did in creation, He still does in my life today...
anyway, here is what i remembered about sun rises...
we tend to see the sunrise as a beginning to the day. like it all begins when we wake up. BUT in truth we see when we look closely in Genesis at the patterns of the days... “there was evening, and there was morning” repeated over and over for that first week of creativity.
so it all really begins in the darkness. God is at work first in the dark, unseen, while we sleep unaware.
then we wake (sluggishly to the alarm clock begging for a snooze or two) and we join into the work He has prepared for us. we think the story all begins with us waking, but really we just enter into a work in progress. we take our place into what He is already doing. and He welcomes us with a nice little light show called sunrise, just to show His glory. to make it worth the joining, to show us Who He is and was and will be to come...
the colors of the sunrise always make me laugh. pink and orange and purple. colors that we wouldn’t say really “go together” and yet, when they are together they are amazing. just like so many things in our life that we think don’t “go together” and yet when the light of the Son shines through those events, they shine and are beautiful.
the darkness, right before the sun rise. the darkness in our lives, right before the Son Rise. the darkness where God is already at work, unseen, quiet, while we sleep unaware. then we wake to Life and Light and a coloring of our lives in a way we never could imaging. so typical, so like God, so consistent. that is one of the things that i really dig about God... His constancy. and yet He is always doing a new thing. how does He do both things? i guess the same way He is the Law and Grace all at the same time. see what i mean about that constancy?
if God was a blogger, He would be much more constant than i... and have better grammar...
For the beauty of the earth,
for the glory of the skies,
for the love which from our birth
over and around us lies;
Lord of all, to thee we raise
this our hymn of grateful praise.