sunset

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Your World May Not Be As Colourful As Usual

My part of the world is not as clear as it normally is and there is nothing I can do about it.

your world may not be as colourful as usual

I’ve heard people talk about having cataracts. They say that everything looks a little cloudy or muted, that colours are not as vibrant. 

I find that to be true when I wear sunglasses. If I’ve worn them for a while while driving, sometimes I need to pull them down to see what things really look like, if conditions have changed since I put my sunglasses on. I may not have noticed that the sun is no longer as glaring as it had been.

In some ways you miss out when you are wearing sunglasses. You don’t see the world in all its explosive glory.

I get that we need to protect our eyes from the rays of the sun and, frankly, sometimes the sun is just too bright.

I remember when I worked for a delivery company years ago. There was one day a week that I began my day at 7:30 am, travelling east on the 401 to Oshawa. In the summer months, at that time the sun was rising above the horizon. 

Traveling on the highway was dangerous without sunglasses. 

First there was the intense, yellow ball of fire that was shining straight in your face like one giant high beam headlight. It was so intense you could barely look at it. 

It was blinding.

But then there was its glare on everything else – other vehicles, the road, any flat surface. 

It was hard to see the lines on the road. It was easy to mistake where the cars around you were. 

I had to be so careful during those trips. I remember that on those days, I couldn’t afford to forget my sunglasses. 

But that is not the case right now in my area.

For the last week or so, the world famous sunsets at Sauble Beach have been rather mediocre.

Usually you never go a day or two without seeing some kind of spectacular sunset over Lake Huron. 

When I scroll through the photos I’ve taken over the years, there are large portions with bright, rich, jaw-dropping sequences of colour that flash by as I scroll.

They are my sunset photos and I have a ton of them … because almost every night I can snap some pics of a sunset I’ve never seen before. 

Now, however, there have been some fires in Northern Ontario. Though we don’t notice much in the daytime, at night, around sunset, the sun is not as bright. 

It’s like the sky has cataracts and its colours are muted – like in the 80’s when pastels were in. 

The rich oranges, pinks, blues and purples have been replaced with softer versions that kind of fade as the sun goes down. 

They are not transforming the sky like they normally do.

Here’s the thing: Our world has been muted over the last year or so. It has not been the same. We all feel like it’s temporary, this muted world of ours. We don’t know when it will end, nor does it seem to be coming to a close really soon. There doesn’t seem to be much we can do. There is one thing, however, and that is to turn to the Bible. The Bible can clear away the particles in our world that keep it muted. God’s word can give you a clear picture of what is to come and how to prepare. 

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What part of your life seems muted to you right now? Leave your comments and questions below.

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Your View Of What’s Important Might Be Blocked

Last night from my deck, I looked at the sky and found the view a little lacking. The sky looked very interesting; it was just that there was too much blocking my view.

Your view of what's important might be blocked

I like living in the city where you’re close to everything you need and the things you enjoy doing. But the one thing that kind of sucks about city living is the view of the sunset.

We should have a great view of the sunsets each night. From our patio window or deck we just have to look a little to the left and we can see a fabulous array of red, orange and purple colours as they bounce off the clouds and contrast against the blue background.

It’s a pretty sight; there is just not enough of it. 

I guess that’s why some people build houses in the country and put them on the crest of a hill. From that vantage they get the full view of the sky as it interacts with the sun and the clouds. 

When we’re at the cottage walking on the beach at sundown, we get that full panoramic view with nothing obstructing the scene before us.

Not so much at home. I can see the sky but there are wires, poles, houses and trees that block the lower half of it from my view. When I take a picture of a sunset, I end up with a very thick transmission wire running right across the image. 

I could mount my GoPro somewhere to get around it, but I’d have to hoist it up a flag pole to get it above the wire.

I could send my drone up a hundred feet to get a better view but I’m not allowed. I live within a no-fly zone radius of an airport, so I can’t fly my drone off my back deck.

It would be nice to have an eraser that would just remove the wires and homes that are in the path of the sunset. It might upset the people who live in those homes to be rubbed out like they didn’t exist … not that my home was here first or that it’s built on higher ground … but it sure would improve my view. 

I realize that what I wish for is not something that I have any power to do. I’m just saying it would be nice, on a particularly absolutely gorgeous night, to have those homes and wires removed some way. 

I’ve seen software that can remove things from pictures so that you never knew they were ever truly in the shot.

I guess that is the best I can hope for. 

Here’s the thing: What might be blocking your view of seeing God in all His majesty and magnificence? It could be unforgiveness or a lack of gratitude. It might be sin in your life. Maybe you are preoccupied looking at something else. Whatever it might be that prevents you from seeing the glory of God, you have the ability to get it out of the way so that you can see God correctly. Let me encourage you to remove anything that blocks your view of seeing God for who He is.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What could be blocking your view of God? Leave your comments and questions below.

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I’m Looking For A Good Sunset 

I like a good sunset, but I usually gaze at them only when I’m at the beach. 

The other day I discovered it’s not a bad idea to look for them elsewhere.

… We had finished dinner with our son, Mike, who was home, spending some of his vacation with us. We were letting the meal settle when Lily said, “Why don’t you go out and show Mike your new drone?” 

I wasn’t too excited at first. I’d flown my drone over our house many times and was bored with videos of just sky and subdivisions below. 

But she urged me a couple of times to do it, saying that the sun was setting and I could film the sunset.

You know, it’s one thing to stand on a beach, looking over the glistening water at the sinking fireball just above the horizon. It’s a totally different thing to look up over the fences, houses and wires to see a little portion of the sky as the sun begins to disappear.

I could stay on the beach for a long time watching the sun go down and the clouds change colour from orange to red to purple. Trying to see the colours in the sky over the tops of houses is not something I like to spend a lot of time gawking at.  

Well, we went outside and I figured I would take the drone up, show Mike how it flies, give him an idea of the quality of video and pictures you can get with it … and then bring it down. 

When I got the drone up, however, the sun had just snuck below the horizon. The sky was absolutely amazing! 

From where we were standing in front of our garage, we could not have known there was any kind of a sunset. But when the drone got up to 20, 30, then 90 metres high and turned to face the west – Wow! The sunset was every bit as spectacular as if we were standing on the beach with the whole sky as a visual screen right before us. 

There may not have been any reflection off any water below, but the colours were incredible. I couldn’t get enough video of it. Finally I switched to the camera and shot some stills of the incredible scene.

If Lily hadn’t encouraged me to go out and show Mike my drone, I never would have even known the sunset was as spectacular as it was. 

When we are at the lake, we make a point of going to the beach at sunset. At home we never give it a thought. 

My sight lines might be restricted in my front or back yard, but 90 metres up I can record the whole sky. 

From now on, I will be taking note of the time of sunset and getting ready to fly my drone to get a glimpse of the magnificent painting that’s filling the canvas that day. 

Here’s the thing: It is really easy to become blind to what God is doing. You get busy with life and what’s coming next. Maybe you’re too focussed on what’s concerning you, or busy juggling the many things you have on your plate. Just like how we can miss the sunset that’s right outside, showing off God’s creative handiwork, we can miss the amazing things God is doing in our lives. Stop and look around; take notice. God is active in your life; He is speaking to you, answering your prayers, and opening doors for you. Just take some time to notice. Don’t miss His magnificence in your life on a daily basis. 

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What keeps you from noticing God in your life? Leave your comments below.

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You Can’t Capture It

“You just can’t quite capture it,” I thought to myself as I looked over my wife’s shoulder. She was taking pictures of the sunset.

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It was spectacular that night, but what I viewed on her screen didn’t compare to what I saw just above the horizon of her phone.

Almost every night it’s the same thing. Well, it’s different in that the sunset is brand new every night, but it is just as amazing one night to the next.

All we can do is capture a portion of it, a scaled down version and reminder of what we really saw. We can’t capture the vast scope of it, nor can we capture the depth of what our eyes drink in. There is nothing like it.

The crazy thing is it’s free. Every night it only costs us a twelve minute walk, or a three minute bike ride down to the shore to take it all in.

My wife, Lily, and I were at a market the other day where someone was selling large prints of nature scenes. There were pictures of the beach, flowers and trees in the woods.

They were all stunning and inviting. They were also so cheap I wanted to buy at least one, but we didn’t have a wall that was big enough to hang one on. And how long could I look at the same picture without wanting, needing something different to look at?

Even with the cheap cost and beauty of these images, they paled in comparison to the free sunsets that go for as far as your eye can see, until the sun dips below the horizon on the lake.

And these sunsets are different every night. One displays a pale blue sky overlaid with light orange ribbons of colour. Another is a dark red fireball that sends deep pink and purple brush stokes across the clouds to complete the vista.

You can’t keep them though. You want to take one home, to look at it and then be able to look back at it again.

And maybe again.

But it is gone when the darkness takes over and erases the enormous etch-a-sketch in the sky.

People, all kinds of them, with their cameras and phones, lingered to take captive one last shot of the never returning sunset before them.

There was a little sense of melancholy at the end, but not too much because everyone there knew there would be a new one the next night.

I was ready to go for ice cream, but Lily wanted a few more pictures and even after that she wanted to just stand and watch for a while, as if it was an intriguing drama on the big screen.

No, it’s just a sunset. It’s big and bold; it changes every day, and it’s free for all. You just can’t really capture it.

Here’s the thing: You can’t capture a picture of a sunset that really shows what it’s like, but the sunset captures you. And that is God’s intent with creation. He has made it so it will draw us to His beauty, grandeur and magnificence. We can’t capture or fully understand God, but He can capture our hearts and our minds with what He has made for us. Allow God to capture your heart; the encounter will be new and fresh every day like a sunset.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: Where have you seen the best sunsets? Leave your comments below.