One Way — Every Day — To Know Your God is a “Sure Thing”

Tuesday 16th October 2012

One Way — Every Day — To Know Your God is a “Sure Thing”

The sun crept above the horizon, inch by glorious inch, illuminating the vast inky darkness with its glowing, widening terra cotta.

The girls and I were driving down to the school bus stop, at the end of our country lane, when we had to stop the car to watch.

In the driver’s seat, I gasped.

In the back seat, one daughter “Oooh’ed.”

The other daughter prayed out loud: “Thank you, God, for sunrises.”

Yes … Thank you, God, for glory. Right here in our driveway.

It wasn’t even the prettiest sunset of the week. There have been others, grander still. But this one held a super-vividness, like it wanted to let us know that the whole universe is charged with the ability to praise an inventive Creator. Like God was booming across the fields, “Good morning, Lee ladies!”

And just because it was there — predictably, assuredly — we knew that we were utterly held and cherished.

I rolled down the car window, and snapped a few frames with the camera.

In the created world, there’s no such thing as “just.” No such thing as just another sunrise, just another dawn, just another breath, just another maple leaf, just another wisp of cloud, just another ice crystal. The created world is a miracle, every last glorious inch of it, because our God is not “just” another God.

God brushed earth alive, coloring it with proof that He is infinitely grand and good. The sun reminds me how the steadfast Lord shouts down through the universe: “You are loved. You have nothing to fear today. For I am with You. I know what you need today, child. Feel this … feel the sun on your face, child. That’s Me, reaching down to touch you.”

We don’t worship the sun, of course, but the slow rise over these trees is a daily reminder of God’s faithfulness and provision. That one orb reminds us how ridiculously small we are, and how vividly gorgeous the world is, and how you have to be paying attention so you don’t miss some of the Lord’s more stunning God-incidences tucked into the everyday.

It’s the surety of His love. That’s what I see here. That’s what I see in that sun bumping up over tree-lines. I see The Sure Thing.

Deep within every mortal, we ache for The Sure Thing. We crave tangible love that cannot be wrenched away. God set eternity in the hearts of men, and we can’t bear life without knowing that there’s a forever out there for us.

It’s so elemental, so simple to say it like that, but it’s the sort of gripping, simple truth that gives people the only Hope they’ll ever really have that there’s actually More.

And we do believe in the More –

in the startling power of Christ, over and in all things.

that He was crucified, died and was buried.

that on the third day He rose again,

And that He is sitting at the right hand of God the Father,

That He left us His Holy Spirit, for this very moment,

And that He is coming again.

We believe in a greater joy that awaits us, a room being prepared for us, and a breathtaking setting-everything-right that puts creation in static anticipation.

And we get a sacred glimpse, right here, every morning, in the glow of God’s infinite goodness.