This might sound like something from Ripley’s Believe It or Not but trust me it is true. It really happened. One day last week, just as I was admiring the sunrise over Lake Superior, my friend from India texted me a beautiful picture of the sun setting over his residence. At that exact same moment, the sun was both rising and setting. The same sun in two different places doing two different things!
The movement of the sun across the sky has always beckoned thoughts of God’s glory. In the Book of Psalms God is extolled with the phrase “from the rising of the sun to its setting may the name of God be praised.” Another translation says “everywhere – from east to west – praise the name of the Lord” (Psalm 113:3). Isaiah, too, notes the rising and the setting of the sun. “So that from the rising of the sun to the place of its setting people may know there is none besides me. I am the LORD, and there is no other” (Isaiah 45:6). These statements try to encompass the magnitude of God’s glory and the expanse of God’s Reign. They are an exhortation to praise God always and everywhere.
That morning I was amazed because, with the help of my friend, I witnessed a sunrise and a sunset at the same time. I was dumbfounded and overcome with the awesomeness of creation and the God who created it. In that moment I was mystically connected to my friend, the world, and most importantly God. Wow!
