“Let’s chase the sunset,” I told my son.
We were driving to our weekly kid’s club at our church’s community center, and we glimpsed the sinking sun through the trees. In this corner of southern Missouri, flat isn’t quite the word to describe the landscape. This is farming country, and the fields stretch for miles and miles without even the slightest rise. But the radiating pinks and oranges through the trees beckoned us to find a place to watch the sun set without obstruction. I drove to the edge of town to the Sikeston Ridge, the one and only hill for nearly fifteen miles outside the city limits. The ridge protects us from flooding in the spring and fall, but it also provides a spectacular view of the western horizon. I pulled over to the side of the road at the ridge, parking in the ruts many others have used for the same purpose, no doubt. The sun was just dipping into the ground. My son and me, we looked and looked and looked, our eyes burning with the beauty of what God had painted across the evening sky.
Remember that scene in “Joe Vs. the Volcano” when Tom Hanks stands up on shaky legs, floating on his faithful luggage, lost somewhere at sea, gaunt and haggard and thirsty, staring at an impossibly large moon? He prays, “Dear God, whose name I do not know—thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG…thank you. Thank you for my life.” Perhaps I’m I dating myself with that movie reference, but I thought of it when my son and I sat on the side of the road while our retinas burned with the blaze of God’s creativity.
Why did God give us sunsets? He could have made the shift from light to dark an instantaneous change. One moment it’s day, the next it’s night. One moment you can see, the next you can’t. But written into creation is a gradual movement in colors that hurts our eyes with brilliance and bends our brains with wonder every single day that we care to pause and notice. Sunsets aren’t hard for Him, and maybe they weren’t even necessary to the created order. But He gave them to us anyway.
I muddle through my days with sighing and complaining and try to hold the world together with a control that is pretense at best. I fret and worry and wonder what will happen if I can’t be in charge of all that I think is important. Here lately, I have battled illness upon illness, and I’ve watched the semblance of order upon which I’ve built my life slip away from me little by little. But then, on a whim, I chase a sunset with my 6-year-old and I remember how big God is. And I know His name, grace upon grace. And He loves me. So I love Him. And I watch the setting sun in a smear of orange and pink and purple knowing that He sent His Son Jesus and that every day of my life is a gift from Him, for Him, through Him, by Him. He holds all things together.
When my eyes hurt with the wonder of a southern Missouri sunset, I remember He is sovereignly and lovingly in control of my life. Maybe He gave us sunsets to remember that.
When my eyes hurt with the wonder of a southern Missouri sunset, I remember He is sovereignly and lovingly in control of my life. Maybe He gave us sunsets to remember that. Share on XGlenna Marshall is married to her pastor, William, and lives in rural Southeast Missouri where she tries and fails to keep up with her two energetic sons. She is the author of The Promise is His Presence (P&R) and Everyday Faithfulness (Crossway), and Memorizing Scripture (Moody). Connect with her on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.