More Than The Sunset

He made all of that, and still chose you.

Beloved Friend,

I stepped out one evening this week just to quickly get something. No grand plans, just one of those small errands, and then I looked up.

The sky was doing the most.

I am talking about the kind of sunset that makes you stop moving entirely and just stand there to soak it all in. The colors, the whole dramatic production of it. Something caught in my chest and I just stood there thinking, God made this. This specific thing that I cannot stop staring at, that is making a stranger out of a regular Wednesday evening, He made it. With intention. With artistry. Without anybody asking Him to.

Then the thought that followed almost undid me completely.

He made all of this, and He still looks at me and calls me His most precious thing.

I absolutely love watching travel vlogs, and I keep seeing these places, these ridiculous, breathtaking corners of the earth, mountains and coastlines and cities that glow at night like something out of a dream. Each time I say to myself, “God made that too”. He made all of that, and in the middle of all of that, with full knowledge of every beautiful thing He has ever created, He looks at me, this particular vessel with my particular flaws and my particular moments of being less than I should be, and He says, this one. I am putting my Spirit in this one.

Not in the lions, though He made them. Not in the sunsets, though they will stop you in your tracks on a random evening. In me. In you.

Now I need you to understand what that means because I think we gloss over it too quickly. God created the lion. That same lion that makes grown men rethink their life choices from behind a fence. That same lion that has the kind of authority in a room, or in this case a jungle, that makes everything else recalibrate immediately. God made that animal and looked at it and said, impressive. Then He looked at us, and said, you know what, I am going to give them dominion over that. The lion does not have dominion over us. We have dominion over the lion. I do not know what the lions were expecting but that was the arrangement and I think it is worth appreciating.

This is where it gets tender for me. There is a difference between someone who sees you at your best and decides you are something special, and someone who has seen everything, literally everything, and still has not changed their mind. Human love, as beautiful as it can be, often operates on partial information. Someone can see you at your most impressive and think you are a wonder. But show them the full picture, the fears, the failures, the seasons where you were not your best self, the chapters that were not pretty, and sometimes the wonder fades. Sometimes you stop being a big deal to people once they have seen enough.

God has seen enough. He has seen it all, actually. Every chapter including the ones you have not lived yet. Psalm 139 says He has searched you and known you. He knows when you sit and when you rise. He is acquainted with all your ways. He has seen the version of you that exists ten years from now in seasons you cannot even imagine yet. He has read to the very last page of your story.

Yet, He has not discarded you.

Who am I that You, the One who designed that sunset I could not look away from, looked at me and said good. Who am I that You looked at this vessel, this same one that has been foolish and afraid and inconsistent and sometimes absolutely all over the place, and decided this is where I will place My Spirit. This is the one I am choosing. Again. Still.

No matter what your life looks like right now. No matter what part of your story feels unglamorous or honestly just a bit of a mess. No matter how little you feel like someone’s most precious creation on a given day. He looked at you, with full knowledge of everything including the parts you have not even gotten to yet, and said good. You are good. You are mine. You are more valuable to me than all the beautiful things I have made that take people’s breath away.

The sunset was gorgeous, genuinely, but He made the sunset, and then He made you, and after seeing everything, He is still not confused about which one matters more.

That is worth pausing for.

With thoughts of kindness,

ABBA’s Shofar.