When Morning Gilds the Sky

“When morning gilds the sky, our hearts awaking cry: May Jesus Christ be praised! In all our work and prayer we ask his loving care: May Jesus Christ be praised! To God, the Word on high, the hosts of angels cry: May Jesus Christ be praised! Let mortals too upraise their voices in hymns of praise: May Jesus Christ be praised!”

One of my delights on the way to work in the morning is seeing the sunrise as God paints the morning sky in incredible colors (not dissing the evening sky; I just see dawn far more often!). I have sometimes told to my sister that my least favorite part of dawn is that God comes up with colors for which I can find no name. How do you describe the indescribably to someone?  

In many ways that’s exactly how God is. He is far beyond our comprehension. We can find no words to describe Him because He is so far beyond our comprehension or the scope of our language. A.W. Tozer captures a bit of that difficulty when he says, “God is infinite! That’s the hardest thought I will ask you to grasp. You cannot understand what infinite means, but don’t let it bother you—I don’t understand it and I’m trying to explain it!”

And that’s really a good thing, because a God we could adequately describe would not be an adequate God. Tozer again, “God, to be God, must be infinite in all that He is. He must have no bound and no limit, no stopping place, no point beyond which He can’t go. When you think of God or anything about God you’ll have to think infinitely about God.”

But that same God who is infinite, who is far beyond our comprehension, takes time to fill the earth He made for us with astonishing beauty—for no other reason than: a) because He can; b) so we can enjoy it; and c) so we can catch a glimpse of who He is. Psalm 19:1-2 tells us, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge.”

If seeing a beautiful sunrise or sunset brings joy to you, think about this: “Do you think that God splashed the lovely, beautiful sky with rose, cerise, blue and white and wasn’t smiling when He did that? Is that just an accident of nature, scientifically explained? Then you’ve got too much learning for your own good! Go empty your head and get your heart filled and you’ll be better off.”

“When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?” (Psalm 8:3-4)

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