Sometimes I Just Need the Sun

These past couple of weeks have been a great time of relaxation for me as my job has allowed me to have them off. Or, I believe, more accurately, there hasn’t been any work scheduled to do. So I’ve had loads of time to myself, the kind of time I haven’t had since I was in high school, and I’m not so convinced that not having to work is the holy grail that people think it is.

The first week was really nice, but this week is starting to overstay its welcome. Maybe it’s the fact that I’ve had all of this time off, but haven’t had anything to do, or anyone to do it with that’s getting to me. I used to see myself as a loner, someone who didn’t need any friends or contact to be happy, but now I can’t stand being alone with myself.

Maybe it’s the realization that I’m not even fun enough to entertain myself. Maybe it’s the fact that I can’t seem to motivate myself to doing much more than ranking up it Call of Duty 4 or sleeping. It’s frustrating. I’m finding, in the quiet, that I’m not who I have always wanted to be. I feel like I’m not much for the Kingdom. As if I can be a of much value anyway, righteous acts being filthy rags and all, but I could do more than stand still.

Today, trying, with no success, to nap off a headache, I managed to motivate myself to get out of bed and go outside (something I haven’t done in a couple of days), where I saw something that I think my soul has missed. I saw the sun. And through the sun, I saw the Son.

Staying indoors, eating leftovers and enjoying technology doesn’t even compare with going outside and appreciating the greatness of what God has created. As the warmth of the sun shone upon me I was reminded of the love and majesty of Christ. I was reminded that He is for me always. That His love is there for me in the quiet. Each of these past days I have looked out the window and saw the sun, I even opened the door to feel the frigid air, but seeing God’s creation through a window doesn’t come close to feeling it all around you. You see, I think that my soul has missed the greatness of the Son. It has been downcast (to say it biblically) because I have missed the joy of the Creator, for His creation.

Psalm 42:1-6
As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God.
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When shall I come and appear before God?
My tears have been my food day and night,
while they say to me all the day long, “Where is your God?”

These things I remember, as I pour out my soul:
how I would go with the throng and lead them in procession to the house of God
with glad shouts and songs of praise, a multitude keeping festival.

Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my salvation and my God.

My soul was downcast because it missed God. It was, and is from time to time, downcast because I am not enough for myself. I can’t make my quiet peaceful. I can’t make my free time valuable. I don’t like spending time with myself because I don’t fill myself with joy. Only God does.

So it took the sun to remind me that the Son is enough for me, in times of loudness and times of quiet. My soul thirsts for God. I can not fill it with leftovers or levels of prestige in my games. And as a deer, without water, my soul rots away toward death without God. He literally sustains me with His grace, and fills me with His love, without which life is death.

Thank God for the life which He has so blessed me with in His Son.