BY STEPHEN G. DUNBAR
here was hardly anything different about
this day. Up at 5:50 a.m., devotions until 6:25, and into the lab at 6:30 to
start experiments. Then, after a quick breakfast, it was up to the office. There
the morning unraveled as it did on most days: e-mail to sift through (trash,
reply, trash, trash, trash), articles to search, notes to write, data to graph,
and work to do on the PowerPoint presentation for the next month. There were
meetings to organize and meetings throughout the day to remember. Lunch would
have to wait.
The afternoon seemed to have knotted up all the work I thought
I had accomplished during the morning. After shutting down my computers and
locking the lab, I couldn’t help feeling that I had finished another working
day very little ahead of where I was when it started.
Arriving home to our little university apartment, I had
just enough time to organize a few evening tutorials, reply to phone messages,
sort through mail, and get ready for dinner. But even in the calming atmosphere
of home, time slipped by. Unless I hurried, I would surely be late for each
evening appointment I had made.
Rushing out of the front door on my way to the cafeteria,
I encountered a sight that caused me to gasp in amazement and drew from my lips
the barely audible words “That’s incredible!” Painted across the entire horizon,
fire red reflected every hue of pink and red and orange dancing off white clouds
in the light of a disappearing sun. The sight overwhelmed me, so much so that
I had to stop to take it all in. And there, as I crouched on the ground in those
moments of stillness that approached 5:45 p.m., my thoughts clicked over a few
simple lessons.
1. Sometimes God will do whatever it takes
to get our attention.
We may be apathetic and letting life slip by, or we may
be running scared from a past that always seems to find us. Whether we’re so
high on ourselves that we can’t see God’s plan, or we’re neck-deep in the filth
of self-pity, whatever the situation is, we can be assured that sooner or later,
God will get our attention.
In the hustle and bustle of ridding Israel of counterfeit
gods, Elijah had forgotten to take time to listen to his Master. But his Master
had not forgotten to listen to him. Through a kaleidoscopic display of nature,
Elijah’s attention was riveted back to the One who was his strength, and once
again he was ready to listen.1 It may be as the sun is setting this very evening,
while God has your attention, that you will hear again His still small voice.
2. All the complications of a busy day can be reduced to
insignificance by the peace of a meaningful sunset moment with God.
It’s not unlike God to use His creation to make us stop
and think about what’s really important. He did just that one night, while sleeping
in the stern of a little boat as it was tossed into the heart of a squall. There
can be little doubt that the thoughts of 12 men ran deep that night. Cutting
across all the busyness they had experienced throughout the day, thoughts
about this Jesus pierced to the reality of their very hearts.2 Although incomparable
to a storm, a sunset sky may sometimes be His way of having us slow down, look
up, and consider Him.
3. There is more to a sunset than picture-perfect beauty.
Not only does every atom of nature reveal God’s power to
create, but just as equally does it reveal His power to save. “No pen can describe
and no artist’s brush can depict the wondrous glory of the heavens; yet that
glory is but the glory of the cross of Christ.”3 In practical terms, this means
that as surely as God is willing to create another sunset, He is even more willing
to do all the work of making our ugly pasts disappear and aligning our new futures
with His. The apostle Paul emphatically states it this way: “If anyone is in
Christ, he is a new creation.”4 “The old life is gone; a new life burgeons!
Look at it!”5
Right now you may be too tired, too hassled, and far too
busy to wonder what the evening sunset looks like. But check your watch! God
may be trying to reach you and teach you lessons from a 5:45 p.m. sky.
_________________________
1See 1 Kings 19:9-12.
2See Mark 4:35-41.
3E. J. Waggoner, The Glad Tidings (Oakland, Calif.: Pacific Press Pub.
Assn., 1900), pp. 261, 262.
42 Cor. 5:17, NIV.
52 Cor. 5:17, Message.
_________________________
Stephen O. Dunbar is a Canadian postgraduate student in
marine biology at Central Queensland University, Queensland, Australia.
