As Sure as the Sunrise

When the alarm goes off at 6:00 am, my eyes pop open and I sit straight up in my sleeping bag. It’s still dark outside, but even the darkness beckons me to come out and look. My dad is already awake, heating water on a pocket rocket stove. Two coffee mugs sit there empty, waiting for the hot water like I’m waiting for the sunrise. 

We are hiking on Isle Royale, a remote island in Lake Superior that is only accessible by ferry or float plane. We are hiking west to east, all forty-five miles across this long skinny island wilderness. We are day six into our adventure, and we’ve found a campsite with a big rock that slides down into Lake Superior. It faces east, a perfect sunrise rock. 

The problem is, we haven’t seen the sun but for perhaps two hours in six full days. The weather is variable in the middle of the Great Lakes, and we’ve caught a cloudy, rainy week. But it’s okay; great even. Because we’re not fair weather hikers. In fact, nothing is better than hearing rain pound on the nylon of your tent while you lay in your sleeping bag and smile, dry, all night long. 

When you’ve got good gear and good company, you can weather any storm. I want to face storms in life like that, not afraid of even the rowdiest downpour because I’ve got good gear and good company. 

A hint of doubt creeps in when I crawl out of my sleeping bag on this dark, still sleepy morning, because I wonder if the clouds will break for the sunrise. If the sky is thick like it has been all week, there may be very little to see. But even knowing that the sun will rise whether I see it or not moves my achy muscles and tender hiking toes out of the warm sleeping bag, onto the dirt, and into the crisp air where my breath makes fog in the beam of my headlamp. 

I balance my weight on the sloping rock and turn my gaze East, and there, on the line of the horizon, a low-lying break in the clouds is an already-lightening blue window into the coming day. There’s nothing to see, yet it already takes my breath away. Just the knowing that the sun will rise, just the anticipation, just the relief that the clouds do break open...is enough. Dad brings me a cup of coffee and sits down on the rock, too. Warm drink cupped in cold hands, warm light coming from the small window in the sky, warm expectation of unfolding glory. 

A sunrise is all about the unfolding. If the sun rises at 7:00 am, don’t get up at 6:55 to watch it. You’ve gotta start when it’s totally dark, because the beauty is in the unfolding of the clouds, the rising of the color, the transformation from dark to day. Yes, I believe the beauty is in the unfolding, the waiting for it. 

The sun comes up quietly. Few people see it. Even the earth sometimes seems to sleep through it. It happens in stillness and quietness, often unnoticed, yet radiant and faithful for all who dare to welcome it. 

I watched the sunrise from the top of a mountain once, and a few other people waited with me on the summit, though each person had kept a solitary distance away from the others. When the sun burst forth over the horizon, one person started applauding, and soon small accolades could be heard from all over as everyone joined in. I smiled, and then asked, What is it that makes us all clap at the sunrise? For me, the answer is obvious; I clap for the Creator. But do they know him? And if they don’t, is this not evidence of the worship rooted deep in our hearts for something - Someone - greater? 

Now, on this slab of warm rock - can you believe it? Still warm from the heat absorbed from yesterday’s sun. I think I’m imagining it, but I can feel it through and through - this rock is warmer than the cold, hard earth. A rock thick enough and large enough to trap the heat and guard it overnight. Or rather, a sun strong enough to warm a heart as rock-hard as mine, a light radiant enough to preserve me through cold nights. 

I let the sun’s heat of yesterday warm me from the ground up, reminding me of past faithfulnesses, and I look forward, eyes fixed on the glowing horizon, for the rising of a new day, drawing me into sure hope of future faithfulnesses. 

“I wait for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning,” says Psalm 130:6.

I know what it’s like to wait for the morning. I’ve done my share of night shifts when all you long for is the rising of that blessed sun. When just a hint of light gives you the  hope of rest, the strength to finish strong. That’s when you are waiting out of exhaustion; here on the rock slab I am waiting out of peaceful stillness and expectation. The sun rises for both. Yet I want to make myself more familiar with the latter. 

Moments build, the light grows, the bottoms of the clouds glow like the sun itself, and then in a joyful instant, the sun appears in a most glorious, triumphant entrance...the most unnoticed miracle. It feels like a holy moment, when the sun rises in obedience to the voice of the Lord even if no one is there to acclaim or appreciate it. It makes me want to stop sleeping through sunrises. It makes me also want to stop striving to be noticed so much and instead just be as faithful and beautiful as a quiet sunrise on a calm morning to a cold world. That’s how you gently wake a sleeping world up. 

I linger as I watch the sun pass through the window in the clouds and then disappear into the cover of the clouds above it. These clouds blanket the rest of the sky; the sun won’t be seen again for the rest of the day. But it will still light the world, it will still warm the rock, it will still make its journey across the sky and rise again tomorrow morning. And I will still know it’s doing all that even when I cannot see it. 

I swallow the last sip of coffee and rise to my feet, wanting to linger yet feeling the peaceful permission to get going with the day. There are miles to cover, a new camp to get to, things to see and conversations to be had along the way. 

I have something big and lurking in my mind; these days it always seems to be the future. There are many unknowns, which means I have very little plans. I’m just waiting for a break in the clouds, remembering that the beauty is in the unfolding. 

The overwhelming word of the Lord for me in this season is Wait. And when I watch the sunrise, I believe that it’s a weighty, wonderful, worshipful word. 

A friend meets me for lunch and listens to my dilemmas and speaks over me: “The verse for you right now is, ‘Be still and know that I am God.’ ” 

An African friend on the phone hears me question how long I will be in the United States, and she tells me, “You’ll be there longer than you think this time,” but there is hope in her voice, a knowing that the waiting is worth something. 

In a moment of listening prayer, I re-remember Isaiah 30 and it speaks to me. “In quietness and trust is your strength.” 

The rays of the sunrise warm my weary heart, and I think, Maybe all the pressure to make plans, move forward, and get onto the next thing - that pressure must all come from deep inside me somewhere,probably the same place that wants so badly to be noticed. But the sunrise teaches me of God’s love, and when I abide in Him, I don’t desire to be noticed as much. For his affection is enough. 

I’m learning to linger in uncertainty, the same way I linger at the break of day. Because it’s all about the unfolding. Although some things in life may be uncertain, I am as certain as the sunrise that God is faithful to us, and that his light shines on our faces when we turn east to look for him.