When it is cold in the winter and I just can’t seem to warm my frozen toes, I like to close my eyes and remember summer days. Specifically, days in July when I have closed my eyes and laid out by a pool feeling the sun’s rays warm my sun-screened skin. I don’t sleep, but rest as I bake in its beams. I am still and know that He is good and He is God. As the sun’s warmth soaks deep, His presence and love seem to as well.

This is the passage I am contemplating and memorizing right now:

“For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor – No good thing does he withhold from who walk uprightly.

O Lord of hosts, blessed is the one who trusts in you!”

Psalm 84:11-14 ESV

This post focuses all on the first phrase: “For the Lord God is a sun.” The middle school English teacher in me has to point out the author’s use of figurative language. God isn’t actually a “sun” or “the sun,” but this metaphor likens Him to “a” sun.

What does a sun do? What does Earth’s sun do? – God created it to sustain life by providing physical energy to the planet. This energy generates power, grows vegetation and gives light. God sustains it, keeping life literally living and uses it to teach us about Himself.

There are spiritual lessons we can glean from the sun. Just as it faithfully rises each morning, God is faithful. Just as we can depend on the sun rising tomorrow, we can depend on God always being in our tomorrows too. Even on the cloudy days, the stormy mornings (like this one), the effects of God’s light chases the darkness of night away. Jesus told us He is the Light of the World and it is through this light, His light, that we grasp to His hope in the darkness of this world.

As I have written before, I love sunrises. I may not always love getting up in the morning to witness the golden light break across the horizon, but I know that they are magnificent, one-of-kind, reminders to me of God’s love and His presence. The Bible tells me that His mercies are new with each sunrise. I cling to that promise as I watch His light, His presence hunt all the darkness, exposing it and extinguishing its effects.

The symbolism of good/light versus evil/darkness is used throughout the Bible and literature. The New Testament is full of promises that remind us that we are called out of darkness. In 1 Corinthians, Paul tells us that God will use His light to expose what is done in the darkness. God’s goodness, His light sees and reveals the sin, the evil, the bad things – those that happen to us and those that we do, trying to hide ourselves.

Light infiltrates every where. It cannot be stopped. It won’t be kept out.

Thankfully, if we look and listen, when the Holy Spirit convicts of us our sin, revealing the pain and shame of what we’ve done, we can come confidently before God for forgiveness, restoration and redemption. Because of Jesus, those sins of ours cannot condemn us, our relationship with God is healed and He brings good out of our transgressions.

I am also thankful, that God and His Light sees and reveals all the sins that have been committed against us. No one “gets away” with anything. He is just and He promises to right the scales of justice – by His judgment, either through Christ’s bought grace or by receiving our deserved punishment ALL of us will answer for the things we have done in darkness.

“For the Lord God is a sun . . .”

I love the sun – sunny days with cloudless skies, sunsets speaking goodnights to good days, sun beams warming my skin on July days . . . Reminding me of SO many, many things about my good, good God.