The whole earth is filled with awe at your wonders; where morning dawns, where evening fades, you call forth songs of joy. Psalm 65:8 NIV
On the way in to work this morning, crossing the bridge span that connects the mainland to the barrier islands, I happened to look, not to my left, where the repair crews and equipment seem to be perennially clustered, but to the right, at the sound. What a glorious sight it was. The water was like glass, so instead of being stirred by wind and waves, it reflected the opposite shoreline, jagged, like a page torn haphazardly from a book and the newly risen sun, announcing the beginning of a new day. The colors ranged from the blue-gray, a melding of all the trees and wild growth to the graduated shades of coral from the sun. It was the stuff of which landscape paintings are made.
Now I do not advocate taking your eyes off the men working so precariously close to the traffic lane, but I am thankful God saw fit to call my attention to his handiwork. It is so easy to be caught up in the daily routine of getting yourself out of the house on time, getting your car defrosted, and making it safely through school zones and the seemingly endless string of stoplights interspersed along the way, and fail to notice the natural beauty of your surroundings. Yet when you do fix on some aspect of God’s grand display so readily available, it can make the difference between a ho-hum day and one that is inspired.
God didn’t have to make our earthly home an inviting place. He could just as easily have made it a barren landscape devoid of beauty, like the photographic evidence we have of the surface of Mars. Instead, each clear day we are treated to a reminder of God’s mercy in the form of the sunrise, which signals a chance at a new beginning and at the end of the day, an equally majestic sunset which is God’s way of saying He is willing to close the books on any mistakes we have made along the way. May we take advantage of His gracious offers.
Dear Father, We praise you for so generously providing us with a world that is a feast for the senses, causing us to pause and reflect on the privilege of having a close relationship with You. Amen.
Carol (NC)
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Sunrise, Sunset
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