Smeagol is Free!
A hermitudinal view of...stuff...


12.19.2004  

Commanding the Morning

Stop. Close your eyes. Well, wait a second, don't close them just yet; finish reading this first ;) Ponder something with me for a moment, would you? This morning, something utterly wondrous happened. If you're at all like me, you missed it because you were sleeping. If, however, at 7:05 am EST you found yourself standing on Cadillac Mountain in Maine's famed Acadia National Park, you were amongst the first in America to witness this wondrous event. Do you know what I speak of?



God commanded the morning, and the sun rose.



Ok, the sun didn't really rise, it just appeared to do so because of the earth's rotation. That's not the point. In Job, God asks of the famed sufferer, "Have you ever in your life commanded the morning, and caused the dawn to know its place, that it might take hold of the ends of the earth, and the wicked be shaken out of it?" In Matthew, Jesus says, "He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous." Amos says, "He who made the Pleiades and Orion changes deep darkness into morning, who also darkens day into night, who calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out on the surface of the earth, the LORD is His name." God commands the morning...this morning! That sunrise that I missed? He did it.



It happens every day. The sun rises, and it sets. What's the big deal, right? Oh...so much...so much! "This is the day which the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it." Every morning I wake up is a day which He has made. He created that day to proclaim His glory...His glory! Is His glory boring? Not in the least! When was the last time the Lord said, "this is the day which I have made; go out and say it's the same old same old." What an absurdity!



Yet we treat each day like it's the same old song and dance, day after day, week after week. We take once or twice to refocus during a week; if we're really good, we do it once or twice a day. Yet it's not just once or twice a day that the Lord's glory is being proclaimed, is it? Jesus told the Pharisees that if His disciples (and by extension, us) became silent, the stones would cry out! The stones! Why? Because they were proclaiming Christ's Kingship, His Lordship, His reign, and His glory!



It is true that each and every moment is filled with His glory. The Lord says in Malachi, "For from the rising of the sun even to its setting, My name will be great among the nations, and in every place incense is going to be offered to My name, and a grain offering that is pure; for My name will be great among the nations." The greatness of His name, His fame and His renown, are not things that the Lord is careless about. Indeed, do you know what I find is the most amazing thing about His glory? That I would enjoy it. Think about it. Paul says of Christ's humiliating death on the cross, "For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." The death of Christ sealed for every man either the eternal enjoyment of God, or a greater awareness of God's eternal wrath and condemnation. Both of these are to His glory; there is no escaping that fact. But you know what? Because of the grace poured out through Christ's redeeming death on the cross, I get to enjoy His glory.



This morning was evidence of that. The sun rose because God made it so. If the Lord did not make it rise, do you think it would? Nope. The writer of Hebrews tells us that Christ "is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power." Wow. Creation would cease if He did not uphold it. And how does He uphold it? By the word of His power. Yeah...wow.



So you see, this day is not boring. The sunrise we missed? Amazing. It wasn't amazing simply because it was beautiful to behold, as I'm assuming it was. It was amazing because God made it happen; after all, no one else could! Remember what Augustine said: "He loves Thee too little who loves Thee together with anything, which he loves not for Thy sake." The sun rises, the sun sets, yet do not forget that they are to be loved for the Lord's sake! He is faithful, and each morning reminds us of that. May our prayer for the morning be as David when he said, "as for me, I shall behold your face in righteousness; I will be satisifed with Your likeness when I awake."



Like many things that happen every day, God's sun rose this morning; may those things remind us of Him, that we might be all the more satisfied in Him. So go now...close your eyes...think of how our God is glorious, and remember that there's still a sunset to enjoy, and another sunrise in the morning, should the Lord will it :)

posted by Bolo | 1:38 PM
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