Contemplating a Sunset

I love it when He stops me in my tracks long enough to just lift my eyes to Him. In the simple things. Like the sunset, glowing like fire in the distance over the icy horizon.


It happens EVERY DAY and how often do I take pause to just... gaze at Him in it. To think about how this moment, this intricate, individual, never-seen-before, never-to-be-seen-again sunset is the handiwork of a God who paints a new one each and every evening, just hoping we might notice, and look to Him. I believe beauty is His calling card ("For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see His invisible qualities-- His eternal power and divine nature" --Rom 1:20).


And if we might follow that calling card to Him, then we might realize that the same hands that touch the horizon and paint it golden, knit each person together in the mother's womb ("You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother's womb" --Psalm 139:13). What do you think He was thinking as He put His hand to His work? Do you think He was seeing all the plans and purposes He had for that individual ("'For I know the plans I have for you', says the Lord, 'Plans to prosper you and not to harm you; plans to give you hope and a future.'" --Jer. 29:11) as He knit, stamping the fingertips with their own unique mark, counting the hairs on the head, and factoring the exact pigment of eye colour? Do you think He grieved over the sin that would cause this child such heartache in its brief wander through history? The sinful nature that would cause him to be born separated from this God who loved him so ("But God is so rich in mercy, and He loved us so much, that even though we were dead because of our sins, He gave us life when He raised Christ from the dead." -- Eph 2:4-5)? I think if there were tears, they were ones of empathy because He knew there would be pain, that life would be hard, that the enemy would take full advantage of his permission to roam about like a roaring lion for this limited time. Empathy because He knew all of the things that would rise up to accost this little one's hopeful spirit, this little one's bend toward faith in his Creator. But there would be gladness behind the tears, because He would know as He was sending that child into the world with a kiss, that the end is good. That the end is redemption from this dying world ("Jesus gave His life for our sins, just as God our Father planned, in order to rescue us from this evil world in which we live." --Galatians 1:4). That the end is perfect reconciliation-- Hope shining on the horizon of the world's end like a giant, golden orb of unceasing light.

If only we who know will live in that longingful love, speak it out to the people around us , who may have grown blind to the hands that molded them ("We are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ. And this is true for everyone who believes, no matter who we are." -- Rom. 3:22). Speak it in our words, in our looks, in the touches of our hands. If only we who know will dwell so long in His beauty where we find it, that we begin to reflect it, becoming calling cards of His, just like the beauty (And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit." --2 Cor 3:18), so that we might point the ones whom have lost their way right back to those hands that touch the sky and set it on fire, those hands which crafted their souls from breath, their bodies from dust, knit them together and sent them off with a kiss into a world where they would forget... until they're pointed back, and remember.

"Love is patient and kind.
Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude.
It does not demand its own way.
It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged.
It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out.
Love never gives us, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance."
-- 1 Cor 13:4-7

Thank You, Lord God, for the [reminders, convictions, inspiration] you give in your Sunsets...