Faithful One

The sun came up this morning.

So,what's the big deal, you say.  The sun comes up every morning.

That's true.  But there are mornings when I have wondered how it can be that the sun comes up or that it continues to shine.  Doesn't the sun know how my heart is aching?  How can it be that, when my life feels like it's in shambles, the world can go about its daily business as if nothing is wrong?  My pain and hurt feel so big it must surely leech out of me and stain everything around me.  How can the sun come up?  How can it shine on a day where it feels like the whole world must weep with the hurt I feel inside? 

There are days when I wake up, and the weight of the unknown presses in on me.  What will I do tomorrow?  How will I cope?  Where will I be?  I hate goodbyes.  I don't want to say them.   I don't want the sun to come up.  I want time to stop until I can catch up with it.  I don't want to face what today will bring.  I wish there could be a pause button on life.

Then there are those days when the sun comes up, and it matches my mood perfectly.  The whole day is filled with radiant light and hope, not a cloud in sight, and I can't wait to get out into it.  And then something goes wrong.  Surely there should have been a hint.  Rainstorms don't fall out of clear blue skies, and it seems only fair that the sky should have warned me.  But it didn't.  Unmoved by my happiness, unaffected by my sadness, unperterbed by my worry, the sun just rises, and shines, and sets.

So the sun came up today, as it does every morning.  And I am glad.

Because it reminds me that God is on the throne.  He is still in control.  He is still holding all things together by his sovereign power.  There is evening, and there is morning, another day, and it is good.  Each day, God says to the sun, "Rise again."  He says to my heart, "Beat again."  He says to my lungs, "Draw breath again."  Each day is a new creation.

My life is on the cusp of another major change.  I hate the goodbyes that today will bring.  I don't know what tomorrow will hold.  In some ways, my life feels like it's in shambles.  But God is on his throne.  The sun has come up.  The earth continues to spin on its axis.  My heart is still beating, and my lungs are still drawing breath.  The world has not come to a screeching halt because of what I face today, because God continues to sustain it.  And the God who sustains this day will sustain me in this day.  He is the Faithful One who rejoices in my happiness, comforts me in my sadness, and calls me to trust him with my worry.

"I lie down and sleep; I wake again, because the LORD sustains me"  (Psalm 3:5).

God is on his throne.  I know it.  The sun came up this morning.