Let the Son Shine In

Shuffling toward the kitchen early one morning to start the coffee that would hopefully jump start my brain, I never glanced out the windows that faced east. I was fairly focused on my quest and was staring straight ahead...toward the coffee machine…wishing I would remember to set the pot up with the timer so it would magically be ready for me when I woke up. But once I had coffee in hand, and had enjoyed a long sip, I glanced eastward to be rewarded with an amazing display of God’s use of design and color.

Out the window was a blazing sunrise, red and pink with hints of gold spreading from one side of the horizon to the other. It was glorious. The deer in the field were obviously inspired as well as they pranced and ran and played.

The beauty, the majesty, the grandeur. It all testified to the creativity and extravagance of God.

But in the back of my mind came the old nautical advice, “Red sky morning, sailor’s warning,” and I wondered if that would prove true. Not surprisingly, the adage played out perfectly. It was a grey, rainy, dreary sort of a day.

The contrast of the two- the glory of the sunrise and the bleakness of the day- seemed to be from polar opposite experiences.

But in reality, they were not. The clouds that hid the light all day were the same ones ablaze in the morning. Without the morning clouds there could never have been the multi-hued display. The clouds were the second most important ingredient to the sunrise.

The most important was, of course, the sun.

You see where I am going with this, don’t you?

The transformative effect of the sun on the clouds is the exact same experience we can have as the Son transforms our clouds, our situations, our problems, from dreary greyness to majestic color.

Because clouds happen. To all of us. Life is full of clouds.

Without the Son they are just grey. And sad. And maybe even depressing.

Don’t allow your clouds to completely cover your life so that the Son can’t peak through.

Instead give your clouds to the Son to use as a canvas to paint His beauty and His transformative power as a display for all the world to wake up to.

Because a transformed life is better than coffee to start a day.