Steadfast, Immovable, Abounding

If you know me well, you know I love a good sunset. In fact, I have an alarm set on my phone right now to remind me to step outside and watch it tonight. With every sunset, God proves once again that He is infinitely creative. As the sun says goodbye for now, and the colors melt together with shades no one will ever mirror with a paintbrush, I am often reminded that each sunset is unique. It’s always a little bittersweet, because it makes me wonder how many sunsets I’ve missed because I was distracted, busy, working, or just didn’t care enough to watch. And because no sunset is the same, I realize I’ll never get back the ones I’ve missed.

I say all this because lately, I’ve been noticing so many countless ways that God has been placing His Hand on my life, revealing constantly that He sees me and loves me. As I sat in gratitude for His remarkable gifts, it suddenly hit me that God definitely didn’t just decide to start showing up for me recently. His presence was not sporadic during the rest of my life, nor has His consistency ever depended on mine. I wonder, how much has He done for me that I’ve missed? How many times have I neglected to look for the signs of His presence, just like the thousands of forgotten sunsets?

Jeremiah 31:35-36 says, “Thus says the Lord, who gives the sun for light by day and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar; the Lord of hosts is His name: ‘If this fixed order departs from before Me,’ declares the Lord, ‘then the offspring of Israel also will cease from being a nation before Me forever.’” God Himself relates the enduring promise of His presence to the daily course of the sun, moon, stars, and tides. And just like these natural occurrences, neither His presence, protection, nor provision rely on our notice.

While we can always be thankful God keeps working when we don’t see it, I wonder, what would happen if we started noticing? James 1:17 says, “Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.” Every perfect gift—not just the big, crazy, miraculous moments, but the soft, quiet, tiny details of love that are woven into the fabric of everyday life. Why wait to thank Him when your finances work out, you get the amazing job, and the disease is healed? When you see a window of blue in the clouds…when a stranger smiles back…when they sing your favorite song in church…when a little kid waves hello…when the excel function finally works (bet you can’t guess my job)…when you get to hug a friend…when the rain creates a peaceful symphony against your window—remember to thank Him then too. And while an Instagram influencer may call it romanticizing normalcy, I call it normalizing gratitude.

The truth is, we humans are obsessed with the little details—it’s why our flesh thrives on gossip and negativity. So why can we not fall so irreversibly in love Jesus that we can’t stop noticing the little details of His presence? As David writes in Psalm 8:3-4, “When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have ordained; what is man that You take thought of him, and the son of man that You care for him?” David understood that the goodness of God toward man is something no one in the universe will ever be able to justify nor understand. The more we think we do understand it, the less we have any idea how good He really is. You might say, “but what if I’m distracted for good reason? What if I sometimes miss the signs of God’s presence because I’m busy doing the work I believe He’s called me to?” Let me assure you, I get it. But remember what Christ said to Martha, when she complained that her sister chose to sit at Jesus’ feet rather than help her prepare the meal: “‘you are worried and bothered about so many things; but only one thing is necessary’” (Luke 10:41-42). I don’t beat myself up when I miss a pretty sunset—but like I said, it does make me a little sad. Yet I would remind you of two things: first, sometimes God does a work in our life that He never intends for us to see. It is meant to simply grow us and maybe even encourage others too. Second, the Lord gave us a memory for a reason. Maybe you missed it. Maybe when His hand was carving out the path of your life, you were looking the other way. That doesn’t mean you can’t turn back in gratitude toward the provision of which you were clueless at the time it was provided. It doesn’t mean you can’t still thank Him for the doors He closed and the ones He opened, the people He placed in your life you didn’t know you needed, and the strength to get through seasons of wilderness. I have found that the more I reflect on His faithfulness to me in the past, the more observant I become of His gifts in the present and the more hopeful I become of His plan for my future. And I realize that sometimes, the sunset is prettiest in the rearview mirror.