I read somewhere that the pictures on your phone give you hints at your aesthetic. If this is true, then I am all sunsets and wildflowers and stacks of books.

I have been known to goad my children into the car to rush to the beach chasing the sunset. Not so much the sunrises, as I value sleep and am of no use to society until my third cup of coffee. Even though every sunset picture on my phone or in my feed may look the same to you, each represents a unique moment with the Lord or my people– a little flare of beauty that lifted my eyes to the One from whence comes my help (Psalm 121:1).

Slow & Steady (In Sunrises & Sanctification)

This past Sabbath day, I spend a few hours diving deeply into Psalm 112, which the ESV subtitles as “The Righteous Will Never Be Moved.” I was drawn to this particular psalm precisely because it describes what my soul naturally is not. I am easily shaken, easily moved, easily thrown off course by anxiety and fear. In my flesh and by my disposition, I am the farthest thing from steady. If I am honest, the first hour of my study, I kept waiting for the Spirit to open my eyes to the formula that would make me suddenly steady and stalwart.

Instead, the Spirit had me sit in a certain section of the psalm (verses 4–8) for quite some time:

“Light dawns in the darkness for the upright; he is gracious, merciful, and righteous. I tis well with the man who deals generously and lends, who conducts his affairs with justice. For the righteous will never be moved; he will be remembered forevermore. He is not afraid of bad news; his heart is firm, trusting in the Lord. His heart is steady; he will not be afraid until he looks in triumph on his adversaries” (Psalm 112:4-8).

The Spirit reminded me of my love for sunsets which prodded a question: “What makes sunsets so beautiful?” I realized it was the gradual nature of the sun rising and setting that offers the beautiful gradients that captures our eyes and our affections. If the sun simply shot up like a rocket to its zenith in the sky or dropped like the ball in Times Square on New Years Eve, we would miss the very beauty that makes a sunrise or a sunset. Yet, so often, that is what I demand of God in my insolence. I want him to transform me or those that I love in a moment; I desire him to change our circumstances with the snap of a finger; I long for answers that are immediate.

How kind of God to give us the imagery of Psalm 112: 4: “Light dawns in the darkness for the upright.” Light dawns in lives as it does in skies: gradually, slowly, steadily, organically. And the slowness allows us to savor the burgeoning beauty.

When I want the Lord to change me overnight, I am short-circuiting the essential, built-in beauty of sanctification. When I beg God to immediately rescue my teenagers from discomfort, I am circumventing the delightful display he intends to make from their situations. My eyes welled with tears as I confessed my impatience that would erase the beauty of the gradual. Instead of trying to rush the gradual, I want to have a front row seat to watch it unfold, just like I do with our San Diego sunsets.

Steadied, Not Steady

Having exposed and clothed me, the Spirit then moved my heart to verses 7–8 (which read as the things I desperately wish were true of me but are the farthest thing from my experience). I dug through the Hebrew words for “firm,” “trusting,” and “steady,” all the while wishing they could be said of my easily shaken soul.

The Spirit was so gracious to lift my eyes to the Lord when I finally got to the Hebrew word samach, translated as steady in the ESV. The word literally means leaning upon, resting upon, supported, braced, and upheld. I had it all upside down: the point of the verse is that the heart of the righteous is steadied not steady in and of itself!

The steadiness comes from without not within. It is not a matter of disposition but of divine help. A shaken human heart is firm only when it is steadied by the strong, scarred hands of the Savior. My heart can be firm and I can, like the Proverbs 31 woman, smile at the future only to the extent that I realize that I am being held securely by the strong hands of my unshakeable God.

I closed my journal and notebook, having received the truths I desperately needed. God’s work in our lives is slow, but the gradual nature of his work gives off the gradient of beauty. Though I am not steady of soul, my soul is steadied by my Savior. Those truths did for my soul what the San Diego sunsets do for my eyes: they left me in awe and refreshed me!