Today’s post is by my husband Glenn. He sent this to me today in an email. He is a really good writer and does some excellent descriptions. That is not something I am good at, and so I am inspired by him. I thought others should read it too!

I’m sitting in my hotel room in Greensboro at a conference, watching the sun rise at 7am. I don’t normally have the time for this, but as there are no children requiring toast and refills of chocolate milk, I figure that I might as well take advantage of the moment. I note how the sun is first visible, a weak shade of pink, peaking over the horizon. As the whole sun emerges, it is a soft sphere of mildly energetic pastel. The earth waits in shadow.

As the sun continues to inch its way upwards, I notice that the uppermost edge begins to shimmer. It is changing color, from the top down. The pink, which previously seemed to blend into the pink sky around it is changing into a bright orange. The earth brightens slowly.

The glimmer is increasingly noticeable by 7:12am, as the sun is now a good inch into the sky (or at least that is how I measure it from the hotel window). It is no longer comfortable to look at it directly, and I have a green blur in my eyesight when I turn my eyes back to my computer screen. The color is more yellowish-orange and closely resembles what I would think of if I were prompted to visualize “the sun”.

The sky is no longer pink. The changing color has gradually revealed the atmospheric blues that our sky was designed to display. The earth is visible. The temperature begins to rise. The drivers heading east on I-40 put down their visors and put on their sunglasses.

Isn’t this how our relationship with God should be? He has given us His light and the directive to separate ourselves from the world to better reflect him. Some stay close to their familiar surroundings, blending into the comfortable shade of pink that doesn’t really bother anyone, including themselves. This is me some days. But God has called us to greater things, moving onward and upward, towards Him. And the closer we get, the more evident His light is. The earth is brighter. Life increases. And people take notice of Him.

I’m feeling rather slack. The sun does this every day. Do I?