Finding Grace in the Sunrise

By amazon Wednesday, September 18, 2019 Comment Edit

God’s people have often practiced sacred remembering. So should we.

One morning I boarded an early flight to Florida for a music gig. I stashed my guitar overhead, claimed a window seat, and turned up some ambient music in my headphones. My mind scrolled through the usual anxieties, like old tapes on repeat. From a west-facing window I found myself ruminating over some troubling circumstances that were pending resolution. My forehead rested on the window, surveying the gray, shadowed landscape.

It was dark as we ascended through heavy clouds. Most of the window shades were closed in the cabin. The light slowly began to change. A little time passed, then someone on the left side of the plane opened their shade across the aisle from me. The morning sun shot a blaze of pink light across my face. The sunlight lifted my spirits.

I looked back to see the view out the west-side window. It remained predominately dark. I had been so wrapped up in my tiny scope of vision that I hadn’t realized the sun had crept over the horizon. While one side of the aircraft was glowing with light, the other was still in the shadows. Perspective has a way of shifting our experience.

On any given day, I could make a list of my anxieties, but the morning light shining on the east side of that airplane reminds me that I could just as easily make a list of the good gifts that God has given me this week, this month, or this year. The people of God have long practiced this sacred remembering. We call it “practice” because we are forgetful people and we have a limited view of the whole picture.

In the words of the beloved hymn: “Here I raise my Ebenezer, hither by thy help I’ve come, / And I hope by thy good pleasure, safely to arrive at home.”

This second verse of “Come Thou Fount of ...