Every day God sends us beautiful images in the nature all around us, but I often miss these gifts because my mind is too occupied with planning, working, worrying, and a host of other things.

Sometimes, as I am writing, I pause in my work and look out the window. On the day I took this picture (see the header image above) the sun’s rays were painting a lovely work of art. I know from past experience that such a view is fragile and easily lost. I dropped everything, grabbed my camera, and now I have something that reminds me of the simple-yet-awesome works of God.

What you do not see in this picture is that I live in a very ordinary suburb (okay, it’s a nice suburb, but not really unusual as far as suburbs go) with very ordinary things going on beneath this sky: commuters are packing their cars and sleepy teens are trudging toward the bus stop. Houses form a haphazard pattern on what was once a huge area of farmland, a place where once the woods met the wild prairie lands.

These other things are not shown in the photo so that we might focus our hearts and minds on something other than our own doings for a moment: to observe the great beauty in this world, even in the midst of what can seem at times a real drag of work, day in, day out.

I believe God is immanently present to us, in our hearts, our work, our play, and our relationships. I also think that sometimes we need a sunrise like this to help us remember that God is also transcendent. The light in the sky reminds me that there is something beyond my own petty worries and obsessions. Whatever the sorrow and suffering in life—and there truly is a lot of that—God still loves us and wants to bring us to something better, something filled with love and beauty.

For reflection: Did you ever see a simple work of nature that warmed your heart, perhaps on the most ordinary of days?