The Sunset and The Storm

As I sit on the wall of a church staring at the second crazy beautiful sunset I've experienced in a week, my mind begins to wander towards my Lord and Savior who created it all. My contemplation of the beauty of the sunset is interrupted behind me by the sound of thunder and I watch cloud to cloud lightning spider web across the darkening sky.

My mind is drawn towards the contrast. On one side, the beauty of God displayed in a fiery sunset. On the other, His power displayed in a storm. As I allow my eyes to flip back and forth between beauty and power, I begin to slow down and consider the barrier between the two. There is none. The power of the storm fades into the beauty of the sunset with no clear delineation between the end of one and the beginning of the other.

That's when I begin to realize that it takes the elements of the storm to create the beauty of the sunset. Without the storm, there is still a sunset. However, the clouds and moisture take what is normally a bright orange end to the day and tosses in reds, purples, blues, and hints of green in no way that an artist would consider on his own. An artist can't begin to recreate the dynamics of a scene like this and no camera can capture it in its entirety.

The colors aren't stable. They change as the sun continues to sink below the horizon until the sky itself appears to be on fire. There is still a sunset without the storm and there is still a storm without the sunset. It takes both to create the awe inspiring picture that makes me forget everything else and stare. There is the smell of rain and the sound of thunder. Look at the sunset and the occasional flash of lightning highlights the darker blues and purples. Look at the storm and the darkness is made brighter around the edges by the sunset.

There's more to it than just the realization of the blend of power and beauty. I begin to realize that the scene is really a picture of grace. You can stare at the beauty of a sunset and see that God is beautiful. You can be in awe of the power in a storm and know that God is strong. But when you see God's beauty with an understanding of His power, that's when you get the real beauty of grace. It's the blend of knowing how powerful He is and that you can't measure up to His standard that grace becomes beautiful to the point of awe struck silence.

It inspires the tear that is simultaneously born from the shame of guilt and joy of redemption. It's the way God overwhelms you with how awesome He truly is. That's when everything else begins to lose significance, gratitude begins to take over, and real change starts to happen in your heart. That's what grace that is greater than all my sin does when you finally see that is more than just words in a book.