Back in the days of Tiger Stadium and no money, the Mr. would regularly buy us tickets to Tigers games trying to get the best seat for the least $$. These seats usually turned out to be “obstructed view.” Basically that meant we sat behind a column and had to watch nine innings pretending it didn’t hurt to stretch like Gumby to see the action. Since I didn’t particularly care about anything but the hot dogs he plied me with, I was fine with the arrangement.
More recently we attended a concert for one of our favorite groups, Mercy Me. The Mr. once again was in charge of securing tickets but he was too slow. The best seats were long gone and he did his best to get something decent out of what remained. We ended up in the balcony, far right. Happily at a concert it’s more about the hearing than the seeing, but the seats still stunk. I told him on the way home that in the future, I wanted good seats or I was staying home. I’m tired of wasting time being almost in the action, but just missing the best of it. I’ll pay the price, I’ll stand in the lines, I’ll get there early. Just put me in the thick of it.
The beautiful thing about having a good chunk of years behind you is that you have perspective to recognize time wasted and to make better use of it now. Theoretically you have a little more money to buy the better seats. You know what you want and you learn the price that’s worth paying. I don’t want obstructed view seats to life anymore. And I don’t want to hear the music but not see the band. I want it all. Call me greedy.
This morning I happened to choose the chair in the living room that faces the front, east window of my living room. I was sipping my coffee as the daboyz got ready for school at about 6:30. It was really dark. A little while later the sun started peaking up. Not really the sun yet, just a hint of pinkness creeping up in the distance. I kept watching and sipping.
The pink spread and flared to a raspberry fuschia red and the creeping colors became prominent in the dark sky. The night time was being pushed away by the sun that I couldn’t see yet. The trees that I hadn’t been able to visualize started to stand out in contrast. The high winter clouds appeared where I hadn’t recognized them in the dark. It was beautiful, almost.
Something stopped the experience just short of beautiful. I was in obstructed view seats again. I was looking at something that I knew was spectacular, but I was looking through a dog-snotted window and over rooftops and power lines. It almost hurt my heart, knowing that something so glorious was happening just beyond my view. I found myself leaning forward in my chair, straining to take in as much as I could.
I sat there this morning and wondered where I could drive for an unobstructed view of this miracle that happens every morning. If I drove down to the river would I have a better view? One of my favorite things about our yearly up north time is creeping on to the porch with coffee in hand in the cold Northern Michigan mornings. I grab my dad’s coats that smell of campfires and wrap both hands around my steaming mug of java and in the darkness on the porch I wait. Quietly waiting for the earth to wake up. I’m never too tired to get up before the sun. It’s part of the experience. I’ll never have enough of those in my heart to be full. It’s never old. The quiet, the darkness, the hand of God pushing the sun up over the trees and the silence gently rolling away to birds and breezes. It’s over in a heartbeat. And I can’t get enough.
I live my life sometimes, in obstructed view seats. I sit too far to the right or left of the action. I hear but don’t see for myself where the music is coming from. Like this morning’s sunrise; the stuff in my way is man made. Houses and power lines and worries and foolishness block my view of glorious things. I hear the music but miss the musician.
I have lessons to learn about obstructed views and looking for the glory just beyond the roof tops. The main one is this, His glory is there nonetheless. The only thing that can really get in my way is me, not noticing the sunrise just beyond the rooftops. Wherever you are right now, take a minute and see if you can't find a hint of our awesome God from where you sit. Drop me a comment and tell me where He was in your day. For me, He was just beyond some power lines on Huron Street doing what He does best..pushing away the darkness.
Thank you God, for sunrises to remind me of the glories You surround me with. Teach me to look past the obstructed view to where You show yourself. Give me a quiet heart to wait on Your beauty spreading across the sky. Give me moments with nothing in my way and only You in my sight. Make me hungry to not just hear You, but to see You wherever You show yourself. Remind me that I’ve learned the lesson of taking a seat too far from the action. Teach me to wake early to seek Your face. Thank you God, for sunrises in the suburbs or on a porch swing in the woods. You are there in both.
Habakkuk 3:4 (New International Version)
4 His splendor was like the sunrise; rays flashed from his hand, where his power was hidden.
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