Are you a sunrise or sunset person?
My mama jokes that sunsets are just sunrises backwards, thus she doesn't have to wake early. *wink* I'm a night-owl too, so sometimes I agree with that motto.
But last winter as the sunrises awoke late enough for this girl to see them, I crawled out of bed to gasp in the frigid air, wrap a bathrobe around me, and shivering, watch the sun wake up every morning for a week. I took a picture of every sunrise, trying to capture the color and beauty like a child coloring a picture with bulky crayons and never truly encapsulating it.
Yet it still caught something beautiful that I look at and remember. From the vibrant, peachy light to gentle blues dabbled in clouds or even grey mornings littered with snow, the sunrises were worth every lost minute of sleep.
I learned to love the sunrise.
Today as I snuggled on the porch to see the sun awaken, the sky was cloudy grey. Instead, I watched the trees turning to fall hues and flipped open my Bible.
In (the heavens) He has set a tabernacle for the sun,Which is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber,
The whisper:
the sunrise is like Jesus.
Because He made a promise that one day soon, He will return. He will be like a bridegroom coming to His Bride whom He cherishes and is waiting for! Like the sun piercing the earth at dawn, the color indescribable, the texture and light and faithfulness of every single morning, Jesus is.
I imagine Him with light beyond our imagination, the skies illuminated in rainbows of color because their Maker is finally here!
And I wonder if in the meantime, He eagerly waits, almost restlessly perhaps, because He sees the enemy coming against us. Maybe He beams proudly as we wait in loyalty to Him, as His Bride presses on with a fierce love that holds on despite tempest winds. His Spirit is in her, and she presses on.
So every morning, the sun rises. Sometimes, smokey clouds block out its light, but it continues to rise, circuit from one end of the sky to the other, and set once again.
And rejoices like a strong man to run its race.Its rising is from one end of heaven,And its circuit to the other end;
I want to live every moment in delight of the sunrise.
Delighting in the fact that my Best Friend, the One who knows all of me and still loves, guides, corrects, forgives me, He is returning for me like a bridegroom!
Every sunrise is a reminder of His sweet faithfulness.
Jesus pursues us, and as we dig into His Word and spend time with Him, we can fall hopelessly in love with this God who made us. He has done that for me, and I absolutely can't wait for Him to return so that we can live together in a perfect earth with no barriers in between the pure friendship man and God was always intended to savor!
I can't wait to be with Him.
So that's what these verses mean to me. That's why as I look at these seven photos of seven mornings in a row--sunrises of intense, dazzling beauty and ones hidden behind snowy clouds--I'm reminded that He is faithful, and His promises are true.
You have permission to laugh, smile, giggle, joy, sing, dance in the awesomeness that if you trust fully in Jesus' finished work, you are adopted into His Kingdom and have an awesome, beautiful, glorious inheritance!
(My poetic heart likes to picture it as Him bringing His castle to His New Earth and us getting to reign with Him as princes and princesses, rewarding us with treasures! How awesome is that?!)
There's nothing sweeter than following Jesus, my friend.
The sun will continue to rise and fall every day as a faithful pointer to its Maker. And I pray we are found as a Bride waiting for her Groom: eagerly expectant, obedient, worshipping because we love Him so much and simply cannot wait to be with Him forever.
Even if I don't wake early enough for every sunrise, *laughs* I'll keep chasing them, trying to capture beauty in words like a child scribbling with oversized crayons, and living in praise!
(psst--here's a song I'm praising God with today on this theme!)
Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed,
Because His compassions fail not.
They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness.
~♥~