Imagine, if you will, a huge grid laid out upon a wall. On
the left-hand side, listed from top to bottom are the months of the year, while
the days of the month are written in ascending order from left to right across
the bottom. At each space inside the grid is posted a picture of the sunrise on
that day of the year. It was a showstopper of a display, filling us with wonder
at the results of the photographer’s personal challenge to snap a picture of
the sunrise each day. Not just for one year… but for
five years, going
on six, Bugsy Sailor was ready every morning, camera in hand, to document the
moment the sun broke over the horizon.
He couldn’t always see it. Understandably some days
were cloudy, stormy, or foggy at the moment of sunrise. But the point is that
he was there and snapped a picture, whether the sun was visible or not.
It was fun to pick a date and locate the photograph for that
day and year combo. On the back of each picture he answered three questions: 1)
Where was the picture taken? 2)What was the weather like?, and 3) Did the sun
rise?
I loved the fact that the answer to Question #3 was always “Yes”.
Whether he could see it or not, Bugsy knew that yes, the sun did indeed rise.
I found the discovery of his personal challenge
so inspiring that I adopted it myself.
I am not a photographer, and I don’t usually see the
physical rising of the sun over the horizon. Rather, I experience the spiritual
rise of the Son in my heart during my devotional time at the same hour
each morning, and I document the event in my subsequent journal entries.
And I have discovered the same thing he did – that no matter
what I’m facing each day, be it fun and adventure, or uncertainty and
difficulty, the Son always rises. Making the effort to rise and be
present to meet Him at an early hour of the morning enables me to face the rest of
the hours of the day and whatever they contain with peace and joy.
After 1718 consecutive mornings, Bugsy missed the sunrise on
Day # 1719. A dead phone battery kept his alarm from going off and he
overslept. Can you imagine his despair? I love the fact that he simply got up
the next morning and was back at it again.
We, too, being human, will have mornings when we miss our
special time with the Lord. The important thing is not that your “streak”
remains unbroken, but that you get up to meet Him again the next day and the next and the
next. Life is better when we make the
effort to look for the Son.
Bugsy challenges us all to see more sunrises this
year than we did last year. He says, “Most importantly, remember no
matter how cloudy the
day, or the adversity you face, the sun still rises.”
So will you.
