Morning=Grace

Morning has an essence all its own. In my family's new house, the two windows in my room both face east - towards the sunrise. Regardless of whether my alarm goes off or not, I can generally tell if it is time to get up or not. A dim, misty purple color outside means that I still have time, I'm free to roll over and close my eyes again. When the sunlight starts making its way into my room, then I know it's time to get up and get ready for work.

I don't exactly know what it is about morning that really resonates with me. Last week, I had to get up early to go white-water rafting with the church. I got up at about 5 am, but I didn't have to leave until 6. After a quick bath, I fixed myself a mixture of milk and chocolate Carnation drink, and then I went out and sat on our porch - the one that faces east. For about a half hour I just sat there and watched the sky as the sun was about to climb up over the horizon. The sky started off as a light violet and grew into a deeper, darker purple-black as I lifted my eyes upward. I also noticed traces of mist that gathered in the low places, close to the woods.

This period of time, right before the sunrise, is one of the most beautiful times of day. I don't know what it is, but it speaks to me. It's so calm, so soothing, and if you just sit there you will find that no matter what, peace is not as far as you think it is. It's like God created this time of day for the sole purpose of saying, "Sit down, wait, and watch for what's about to happen."

And then the sunrise.

Is there a more hopeful and glorious thing to see in nature? The dark horizon suddenly erupts into a deep red-orange, and a yellow that gradually chases away the hazy purple. Suddenly, lights in houses start to come on and the people of the city begin to stir. Traffic becomes more dense and a world that was once serene suddenly becomes busy.

A couple of the saddest verses in the Bible are in Genesis 6: "The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart" (Genesis 6:5-6).

This verse comes right before the story of Noah and the flood, when God basically obliterates all of mankind except for Noah and his family. It's not necessarily a message that we hear too often, the fact that God actually regretted that he created humanity to the point where it grieved his own heart.

I wonder if God even pondered ending it all then. Or if he thought that maybe we weren't even worth it. God could have ended humanity and tried something else, or gone back to the way things were before we came along. He obviously created a perfectly beautiful world and said that it was "good". Did we get so evil that it was time to get out the eraser and start over? Are we just a page that should have been ripped out and thrown away a long time ago?

I find that answer by going out onto my porch and looking east at about 6 o' clock in the morning. The sun slowly begins its ascent into the day sky, as it did the day before and the day before that. It will probably do the same thing tomorrow.

To me, the sunrise is a sign of grace. It is a privilege for any man or woman to wake up in the morning and have the opportunity to breathe and live life. A person gets the opportunity to see the people they love and do things that they love to do. The most ordinary moment can be something really special. After all, God had the choice. He could have ended it a long time ago, but for some reason he decided that we were worth it. In spite of all our failures, in spite of the fact that we sin like it's an incurable disease, God made his mind up that we are worth all the heartache. Every new morning, every single repeated sunrise is a testament to that.