When we visit our family in Arizona, I get up every day while it’s still dark and walk out to a place in the desert between two mountains to watch the sunrise. The landscape in Arizona is completely different from the flat sprawl of north Dallas. The colors of the desert valley are shades of brown, green and ochre. There are mountains and hills covered in cacti and other desert fauna. The wildlife is different in Arizona too. Most mornings I’ll see coyotes, road runners, and other unfamiliar creatures. Our beautiful planet is different everywhere you go. I love the Arizona landscape, but it’s the sunrise that gets me out of bed every morning. It is consistent and yet unpredictable every day. It’s consistent in that it rises at the same time and in the same place. I know that if I am at my spot at 7:35 am, I’ll see the sun creep up over the mountain and cast it’s light and shadows on the hills. And yet, every day the sunrise is unpredictable. Depending on the cloud formations, the sun can light up the sky in streaks of pinks, oranges, blues, and purples.

The consistency, yet unpredictability of the sunrise reminds me of the God that we serve. The Bible says that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Heb. 13:8). We can always count on God to be consistent. Like the sunrise at 7:35 am, He is always there, right on time. But He does not always appear the way that we may hope or expect. Sometimes we become disappointed with God when He doesn’t answer our prayers exactly the way we have asked. God is consistent, but He is also consistently unpredictable too. We should be thankful for this.  

When I walk toward the sunrise, I never know exactly what it’s going to look like. It’s always spectacular, but it’s never the same as the day before. That’s how God is. He’s consistent while always unpredictable. I love that God is consistent. I am so thankful that He is always there, and that He promises never to leave us or forsake us (Heb. 13:5). But I am also so thankful that He works in ways that I could never imagine. Many times it’s His consistency and unpredictability that causes our spiritual growth. When we face adversity in many forms, when the beautiful day or the beautiful life that we had planned doesn’t unfold exactly the way we had hoped, it is His consistency that helps us to know that we can always rely on Him.

It’s His unpredictability that causes us to deal with the adversity that helps us grow closer to Him. I pray that in the unpredictability of life, we all come to rely on God more.  His unpredictability only shows more of His goodness. God will shower us with love and blessings that we could not imagine, even if the way He does it is unpredictable. It is both the consistency and the unpredictability of God that makes Him God.

With every sunrise I watched, I praised him another beautiful morning. I thanked Him for his consistency, that He’s as reliable as clockwork. But I also thanked Him for His unpredictability. I pray we let God be God, and trust Him as much in His unpredictability as we do in His consistency.