Looking For the Son

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 posted 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.

Perhaps after the loss of your spouse you have wondered if the sun would ever shine on your future again. Maybe  you can’t imagine what the days ahead will look like without the love of your life walking beside you. Surely for many, the plans and expectations for your future years will have to be changed or rearranged. I guess that’s what so impressed me with this man’s mission. When the night was dark around him, he rose and went looking for the sun.

I found the discovery of Bugsy Sailor’s 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. And making the effort to rise and look for Him at an early hour of the morning enables me to face the rest of the hours of the day, and even an uncertain future, 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? In that instant he faced a serious moment of decision. Should he pack it all up and be done with the project… or continue on? I love the fact that he simply got up the next morning and was back at it again.

We, too, for whatever reason, will have mornings when we fail to look for the Lord. The important thing is not that our “streak” remains unbroken, but that we get up 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 each of us 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.”

That’s good news for me and you. The Bible says it, too: “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,’ declares the Lord…” (Jeremiah 29:13-14 NIV, emphasis mine).

When life is at its darkest, God’s Word still holds true.