The Sunset and Storm - Looking Down

I was (an still am) awestruck by what I wrote about in The Sunset and Storm. In those minutes, I was inspired to look beyond what was happening in the sky and consider what it told me about God. I was me looking up at Him through those elements. But what would you see looking down from His perspective through the lens of the sunset and the storm?

There is the storm - a blend of moisture, warm and cold air, positive and negative charges, and decreasing pressure. The more of these elements that are mixed together, the more violent their collision becomes. Much like our lives, "minor" sins create minor rain showers. But those minor sins are the same elements found in major storms; add more of them and give them more time to develop and the collision becomes more violent when it all comes out.

Oh yes, my storm was the creation made from relatively minor things that were left alone to develop in my heart and soul. As I allowed those elements to mix and added to them, they grew stronger until even my pride and arrogance could no longer contain it. And what a storm it created. Strong enough to rip apart my life and leave me with almost nothing... but there was a glimpse of the Son in my storm.

Taking my eyes off of the storm and fixing them on the Son of God Himself left me with hope and the promise of peace. I look to the future at the sunset and see the way He is taking the darkness and using it to paint a picture that is so beautiful you don't want to take your eyes off of it for fear that you may miss out on even a moment. That sunset is not complete. He is still taking the elements of the storm and creating something that evolves as each minute passes. He has not yet revealed what that picture will look like at the height of His glory.

There are those that understand grace, and they delight in watching the Lord at work in someone's storm. There are those that don't understand grace, and they are scared by the storm. When we've brewed a massive storm, when it's out there for everyone to see, it changes a person - sometimes for the better, often for the worse. When we choose to allow Christ to take on our storm, He is faithful to not only rescue us from its danger, but to also create the sunset. Yet that sunset was not meant only for us to see, He created it so that the world might know of His grace and mercy.

Only Christ can take our storms and turn them into sunsets. The more elements we brew into our storms, the more elements He has to work with. The greater the storm, the more incredible the sunset.

So you have a choice. You can stare at my storm and see my sin. You can stare at my sunset and see the change. Or you can see both, and as your eyes slowly turn from my storm to my sunset with no clear line between them, be in awe of the way our Savior takes the darkest storms to create the most incredible sunset.

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.