Sunrise is an act of God

Here's a wee devotion to remind us all that God is control of the world at every level. :-) (NB This is my 100th post!!)

Sunrise is an Act of God
By Elisabeth Elliot
Taken From: A Lamp For My Feet

The night sky, when I went to the front window this morning, was a clear dark blue, with a few sharp stars. Now, as it reddens toward dawn, a thick quilt of slate-colored cloud is moving over the whole sky, leaving only a strip of rose gold. But I am sure the sun will rise even though covered with a quilt.

We assume the sun will always rise. It always has. But it rises because God continues to will it so, not because it must in and of itself. I breathe, not because I am a smoothly functioning breathing machine, but because He who holds my breath in his hand wills me to breathe, as He wills the squirrel to breathe in the oak grove beside my house and the crow that perches in the scrub pine.

The will of God is not a given quantity. It is creative, dynamic, flowing action. Jesus participated in that action by submitting to the Will and moving with power along the "appointed way," according to the "appointed time," choosing the Father's will above his own.

The sun does no choosing. God chooses--every morning so far--to make it rise. Yet the Lord of the universe asks me to choose to follow Him--to participate, as Christ did, in the flowing action which is his ill. "Dwell in my love. If you heed my commands, you will dwell in my love, as I have heeded my Father's commands and dwell in His love" (Jn 15:10 NEB).