About a month ago, I was driving to church on a Sunday morning just after 7AM when I saw a car pulled off on the side of the road, and a man standing next to the car. As I drove closer, I paid particularly close attention to what was going on. Did they have car trouble? Was someone hurt?
Turns out the man was leaning against his car with a camera pointing east. As I turned to find what he was looking at, I saw a bright, magnificent sunrise just starting to peek over the horizon. And to think, I almost missed it.
I think Christ-followers are supposed to be like the man pulled off on the side of the road looking at a sunrise. Every day we have opportunities to be thankful, and to praise God for who He is and what He’s doing in our lives, but more often than not, we miss it, because we’re not looking for it.
The Apostle Paul models this kind of expectant faith well. Nearly every letter he writes starts off with the Gospel and by giving thanks for all kinds of things. My guess is Paul probably woke up every day preaching the Gospel to himself in eager expectation of how he would experience God’s love and mercy throughout the day. These encounters with God’s grace would deepen his love for the Lord and lead to an overflow of worship and thanksgiving, even in times of illness, persecution, and suffering.
What would it look like if we were characterized more by our lives of continual praise and love for God than by our worship on Sundays? Pray that we would be people who expectantly experience the Gospel and who overflow with genuine worship and thanksgiving.
And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way, bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power…and joyfully giving thanks to the Father. Colossians 1:10-12
CK
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