Run toward the Dawn

I have a confession to make: Most mornings, the most beautiful ones, I’m still out there taking pictures. The sunrise project has changed me somehow, and I feel as if the purpose of the project isn’t completed yet. In fact, it feels like that purpose is growing.

I’ve struggled with what to do next, but I’m reluctant to lay the last thing down. I have been talking to my closest ones, trying to find direction. I don’t want to repeat myself, endlessly trying to capture the perfect sunrise. It’s not really about that anymore. While I am just as amazed at the beauty that is, like God’s mercy, “new every morning,” I miss the private time out there, the closeness to God, the quiet time with Him.

But I’m tired. I was up late shooting pictures of the moon, which will be full tonight, and then I saw that beautiful man in the moon again early this morning, and I took more pictures. But it was still hours before dawn, and so I sat down to do some writing. I sat for over an hour and wrote, trying to put things I can barely understand into words.

Somewhere along the way I got cold, set my alarm and got back under the blanket. Then my phone went off. “Good morning! I thought of this song seeing the sunrise and wanted to send it to you.” I clicked the link and the song began. It was “Shadows of the Dawn” by the Gray Havens. I heard these lyrics, and everything changed: “. . .But I won’t wait, resting my bones. I’ll take these foolishness roads of grace and run toward the dawn.”

I flew around in the dark, gathering essentials: shoes, keys, license, CAMERA! The poor old truck missed out on warm up time, so I babied her a little. We were just trying to get down the road, away from everything tall, searching for clear skies.

I continued to play my friend, Ashley’s, beautiful new song, over and over. The words burned themselves into my mind. Memories of the past year appeared in succession: Waiting in the freezing cold on winter mornings; seeing the glow over the place the sun was going to rise; watching the sun pillars form on rare mornings; enjoying the drama of the clouds, and re-experiencing the moments when the sun peeked over the horizon and the light “pierced through me like a sword, and came out like a song.”

But the lyric was speaking of God’s grace piercing us, like the light of the rising sun. I was overcome with joy on those mornings, and often a song would come. Sometimes a hymn or a praise chorus, and sometimes it was a song that I made up on the fly, thinking only of my Creator and his amazing love, expressed to us through the beauty of the skies and the earth.

“O sing unto the Lord a new song; for he hath done marvelous things: his right hand. . .the Lord hath made known his salvation. . .all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.” Psalm 98:1-3

How sad it must make God feel that so much of what He does for us, we take for granted. We rush back and forth, thinking of our little daytime dramas, consulting the black box in our hands, transitioning to the screen at work, then to the flickering box at home at night.

All the while, real life is happening all around us. The birds fly thousands of miles to return in the spring, and who notices? The snowdrops begin to emerge from the winter mud, the crocus and the dainty bluets peep through the snow in a miracle of re-emergence. This is real. You can see it, smell it, touch it. It’s the farthest removed from the digital world that you can get.

And while our imaginary world of digital things often drags us from God because it worships the ideas of man, the concrete world of sensory things points directly to Him. How do the birds know where to go when they leave in the fall, and how do they find their way back to the same lake in the spring when they return? How does the flower know when to emerge so that the little moth will have nectar when he emerges? There is a vast, connected group of real things outside, and they all point to the hand of the Creator.

Our Creator made each one of us, filled us with dreams that He meant us to pursue, and planned good works for us to do. We have a purpose, and He will show us what that is when the time comes. But he will not force himself on us; we have to want Him, seek Him, and if we do seek Him with all of our hearts, He promises we will find Him. And if you are still a skeptic, test Him on that.

But you’re tired. I get it. I am, too. This world sucks the hope and the ambition out of us; filling us with fear and dread, instilling cynicism and cruelty. It seems like every headline, every video, every text is filled with something negative, splashy, or compelling. “Breaking news!” “He was so sorry he did this!” “Infuriating court ruling!” “The End of Freedom!” “Hate!” “Crime!” “WAR!!”

Each assault against our peace, each lie, each pandering email takes us further down the road toward being jaded to the wonder of life. But in an amazing act of indifference, the natural world doesn’t depend on our attention to go on living. It serves a different Master.

Of the whole of creation, man is the only one who ignores God. Everything else serves God in trusting, unquestioning obedience. We will never get an email when the whales return, or receive a text before the mountaintop flushes purple. They happen entirely at the will of God, without us. We have to watch if we want to see them. Beautiful things, important things, don’t ask for attention.

And while the things of man drain you of your precious energy, just being in the natural world, which God made, begins the process of healing. We can trust the things that come from Him. With attention, your sense of wonder will return. God said, “In returning and rest shall you be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength: but you would not.” Isaiah 30:15

I almost missed the beauty this morning, but for Ashley’s text. It was grace that brought me back to nature, to the beauty God prepared.

I thought about the “foolishness of the road of Grace.” I often get strange looks from others while I stand in the cold wind, taking pictures of the sky. It is uncomfortable to be out in the elements early in the morning. Some may think there is something wrong with me. But if I don’t step outside my comfort zone and go outside, I will miss the sunrise. I have to pursue it to find it, and sometimes I have to take risks.

The same is true in our journey of faith. Sometimes the Lord asks us to do unlikely things, or to expose ourselves to criticism or even danger. But we have nothing to fear from those things, for if He asks us to do it, He will provide the ability.

Once in a while, the people who look strangely at me when I am taking pictures will turn to look at what I am photographing. And once in a great while, someone will stop and admire the beauty with me. (It has only happened a couple of times in over a year, but still.)

After all is said and done, maybe that is how to best communicate the Truth. I’ll just lose myself in the beauty of wonder, and stare until my eyes begin to run with tears. And if someone wants to know what has brought me such joy, maybe they will stop to see for themselves. The natural world alone can’t sustain this; it is only the Spirit of the Lord that brings this kind of joy.

If you are waking up, now you will be able to use your will to control your attention. Guard your heart, as the proverb says, for out of it spring the issues of life. (Proverbs 4:23)

Have a beautiful day!