I’m not sure if it’s a hobby, or a habit. Maybe it’s just how God regularly reminds me of his creative power and reliability. I’ve grown fond of taking photos of the sky, and particularly the sky over our nearby lake. My camera fits in my pocket, no fancier than a smartphone (which now that I think of it, is pretty fancy).
But before my smartphone days, I’d comment to my boys as we drove to school, “Wow, you guys! Look at the sky!!” They’d stare through windshield, squinting into the sunrise, and barely nod.
“It looks the same every day,” one of them growled.
They were young, tired, and headed to school, so I probably shouldn’t blame them for their unenthusiastic response. I probably uttered the same ridiculous sentence to my mom.
I was irritated until I realized they are completely accustomed to radiant sunrises. When purple and coral come spilling over the horizon, they are not surprised. Perhaps because they’ve seen it so often.
A missionary from China visited our church at the height of the SARS virus outbreak. He spoke of their work and commitment to their Chinese church despite the health concerns. He talked about the dense population and the needs of the culture. They were headed back to China but glad to be near home in South Dakota. As he talked about the comforts of home, he got choked up talking about the sunrise.
The sunrise.
In China, (in the city where they worked) massive buildings and dense smog obscured the sunrise and sunset. Every day. To see it and talk about it, brought him to tears.
He did not harbor the bored over-familiarity of my tired little minivan passengers.
How can the sunrise bring tears? Why do I marvel and think it worthy of a photo and a caption, and an Instagram post? After all, “It looks the same every day.”
Some would say the sunrise brings hope. Hope of a bright new day, which conjures up happy feelings that things will be better. In the musical Annie, our beloved protagonist sang, “The sun’ll come up, tomorrow,… clears away the cobwebs and the sorrow.” But that’s not completely true, is it?
I’ve wrestled with the word “hope” this year as I wrote a book titled, Remarkable Hope.
Here is what hope does not mean: wish hard and it might come true.
We desperately need hope. We need an anchor, a steadying foundation, something we can know for certain will happen, something good and solid we can fix our eyes on like the steady line of the blazing horizon.
Hope, as it’s used in the Bible, has none of the uncertainty of wishes. Biblical hope is a future certainty you can expect and count on. It’s not based on the strength of your wishing or outside chances. For the believer, our hope is based on the irrevocable work and words of Jesus.
The great exchange Jesus initiated on the cross—our sin for his perfect life—is the reason we have hope and certainty. It’s a guarantee of a future bright new day the apostle John glimpsed when he wrote: “And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.”
There is a future certainty—a hope—a day when sadness and sorrow will be washed away. When God will wipe every tear from our eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All those things will be gone forever (See Revelation 21:4). The apostle Peter writes, “…set your hope completely on the grace that will be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed.” (1 Peter 1:13, NET)
It doesn’t mean the in-between time will be a cake walk. But Jesus guarantees the certainty of his presence in the pains of earth and the promise of a pain-free future. With a hope like that flaming on the horizon “the things of earth become strangely dim.”
Alexander MacLaren writes: “Just as when a man’s eye is fixed upon the reddening dawn of the morning sky, all the trees and objects between him and it are toned down into one uniform blackness, so when we have that great light shining beyond the earthly horizon all the colours of the objects between us and it will be less garish, and they will dwindle into comparative insignificance. It is not so hard to bear sorrow when the light of a great hope makes the endurance but for a little moment, and the exceeding and eternal weight of glory more conspicuous than it.”
Annie was partly right, we have this hope, this certainty: the sun will come up tomorrow. The bright new day is most certainly up ahead, even if it’s obscured by buildings and smog or thunderheads and fog. God will be painting the sky, turning the Earth, and preparing a pain-free, glory-filled future.
May it color every circumstance with the brilliant hues of eternity and obscure every temporal trial in between.
I love looking at the sky. Only God can give us the same gift every day, that is a constant surprise and delight!
We are truly blessed by the beauty of God’s creations. 🙂
Great pictures of the sunrise and sky! We also love the sunrise where we live now which is in the Canadian Rocky Mountains. It’s just so reassuring that God blesses us with another day! Another day to live for Him and try to bring forth His message of salvation!
We experienced awesome sunsets while living in the Provence, France. Every evening we watched the unreal colors of blue, red, pink and yellow from our kitchen/dining room window.
I was going to post a picture of it here but it doesn’t work. Too bad. If you like you can check out a picture of it on our blog: michaelcopple.blog where we write about our adventure of publishing a Revelation Study Guide called “Digging Deep into the Revelation of Jesus Christ”.
May God bless you in your adventures for Him, Elfriede
Spoke right into my heart! I’m sad about not seeing my dad, would love to give him a hug and sing county western songs with him! He’s especially fond of Glen Campbell.
But one thing we can count on there is a better day a com in’…our hope is built on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness!
Thanks Shauna!
I will send this to him straight away!
I try to, every day, look up at the sky and thank God that he has allowed me to live one more day. I look around me and I’m just in awe of all that he has created. It is beautiful! LOVE reading these reminders of God’s handiwork. Thank you for sharing!!