Challenge Accepted!

Imagine, if you will, a huge grid laid out upon a wall. On the left-hand side, listed from top to bottom are the months of the year, while the days of the month are written in ascending order from left to right across the bottom. At each space inside the grid is posted a picture of the sunrise on that day of the year. It was a showstopper of a display, filling us with wonder at the results of the photographer’s personal challenge to snap a picture of the sunrise each day. Not just for one year… but for five years, going on six, Bugsy Sailor was ready every morning, camera in hand, to document the moment the sun broke over the horizon.

 He couldn’t always see it. Understandably some days were cloudy, stormy, or foggy at the moment of sunrise. But the point is that he was there and snapped a picture, whether the sun was visible or not.

It was fun to pick a date and locate the photograph for that day and year combo. On the back of each picture he answered three questions: 1) Where was the picture taken? 2)What was the weather like?, and 3) Did the sun rise?

I loved the fact that the answer to Question #3 was always “Yes”. Whether he could see it or not, Bugsy knew that yes, the sun did indeed rise.

I found the discovery of his personal challenge so inspiring that I adopted it myself.

I am not a photographer, and I don’t usually see the physical rising of the sun over the horizon. Rather, I experience the spiritual rise of the Son in my heart during my devotional time at the same hour each morning, and I document the event in my subsequent journal entries.  

And I have discovered the same thing he did – that no matter what I’m facing each day, be it fun and adventure, or uncertainty and difficulty, the Son always rises. Making the effort to rise and be present to meet Him at an early hour of the morning enables me to face the rest of the hours of the day and whatever they contain with peace and joy.

After 1718 consecutive mornings, Bugsy missed the sunrise on Day # 1719. A dead phone battery kept his alarm from going off and he overslept. Can you imagine his despair? I love the fact that he simply got up the next morning and was back at it again.

We, too, being human, will have mornings when we miss our special time with the Lord. The important thing is not that your “streak” remains unbroken, but that you get up to meet Him again the next day and the next and the next.  Life is better when we make the effort to look for the Son.

Bugsy challenges us all to see more sunrises this year than we did last year. He says, “Most importantly, remember no matter how cloudy the day, or the adversity you face, the sun still rises.”

So will you.