I love sunsets! 

I probably wouldn’t mind sunrises if they weren’t so early, but sunsets are one of “my favorite things”.  

They are beautiful and inspiring. 

I’ve always been fascinated by the sun.  Perhaps it is connected to my love of fire. 🙂  I remember, as a young boy, watching the sun; intrigued by its journey through the sky providing warmth and energy to all in its path.  One year, I even did a science fair project on solar energy.  I was interested in researching the possibilities in harnessing the power and energy from the sun.  As I’ve grown older, I’ve learned much more about how critical light is — not only to life, but to our actual sense of well-being. 

In contrast to that, I also enjoy journeys into caves.  You want to talk about contrasts!  To walk from a bright sunny day into the depth of a cavern and have the lights turned out — now that is darkness.  This is the point where the contrast fails to really be a contrast.  I don’t like the cave trip when they turn the lights out.  I love the cave formations — the stalagmites and stalactites — as they are illuminated throughout the cavern.  To use lighting sources to highlight various formations in the cave gives a sense of beauty and wonder.  Without the light . . . well, without the light there is little point in even being in the cave.  If you’ve never been in a cave with the lights out, the term “utter darkness” is probably a bit too mild for what it is like underground.  It is also the one place where it is very easy to see the power in even a small amount of light. 

Yet the more that I understand the power of light, I’m drawn to an even greater power — the power that brought light into existence.  In Genesis 1:3, God says, “Let there be light,” and there was light.  Out of nothing . . . out of a formless and empty darkness, God speaks the word and calls light into being!  An Almighty God that says so, and “so” exists.  This is a power that is unequaled and unrivaled.   It is impossible to authentically duplicate this power of calling something into existence out of nothing. 

Every time I watch a sunset and enjoy its beauty, I am drawn to a single thought; “And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.”  All of this beauty, creativity, and power I am observing is because God spoke light, and everything else, into existence.  Our culture seems to be built around a concept that our power can be measured by our words.  Not so much by the words we speak, but by what happens when we speak.  I remember an investment firm, probably in the 1980’s, which used the advertising phrase, “When E F Hutton speaks, people listen.”  Their marketing strategy was designed to portray power and authority.  The idea was that if this guy talks you had better be listening, everyone else was.  On the other side of the coin, we probably all know someone — we’ve probably all been someone — who has felt powerless in a variety of situations simply because, “No one is listening to me.”  You see, we do translate on a daily basis the effectiveness of our words into a measurement of power.

So, do you know of anything greater being done by the spoken word than that of calling light and life into existence where there was none?  Not starting with something and putting elements together to form a “new” thing, but having nothing and saying, “Let it exist”.  How are you applying that incredible power of creation in your life?  So often we look at our lives — I look at my life — and conclude that there is not even anything here to work with.  I really can’t expect God, or anyone else, to do much with what and who I am.  We need to think again.  This same power that spoke light into existence is the power that raised Jesus from the dead and is ready to work in your life and mine. 

I’ve seen God do it in my life; when I’ve examined myself and concluded I have nothing that qualifies me to do what needs done.  It has been at these times that God has said, “I’m glad you notice that.  Now I will speak into existence in your life what I need in you to accomplish what I am calling you to be.”  My guess is that some of you have been there as well and could testify to this Almighty God working His “let there be light” in your life.

May you and I recognize that we serve an Almighty God who has the power to transform us from what we were and from what we are, into what He calls us to be.