Before the sun comes up

God does not sleep. I sleep. I wake up in the morning. The sun is just coming up behind the trees on the other side of my street. Another day has begun. Nothing has happened in my life, for better or for worse, for seven or eight hours.

Then, from that point on, the main things on my mind are the things that directly concern me. From the time I wake up to the time I fall asleep again, I am absorbed with my world. And I feel that God must be absorbed with my world, too. He must be.

Somewhere along the way I've begun to think that because I wake up every day to the things that concern me, God must wake up every day to the things that concern me; as if He has just been waiting for my day to begin or has come out of a night's slumber to tend just to me.

But I've remembered something recently that rebukes me.

Before the sun comes up on me it has been shining over half the world. Before the sun comes up on me God has been attentive to the needs and prayers of tens of millions of Christians and their ordinary pastors. Before the sun comes up on me He's been gazing on the plight of 4 million orphans in Ethiopia and the famine, poverty and disease that rocks the African continent. Before the sun comes up on me He has heard the prayers offered to millions of false gods in India. Before the sun comes up on me, a hundred nations and thousands of people groups have been on God's radar as He unfolds His eternal purpose for them all.

Then, my alarm clock rings.

God is not absorbed with the things that concern me. He cares about my cares. He is with me. But I am not the sole focus of God's attention, neither is my church or my community or my nation. It ought to be the other way around. I should be absorbed in the things that concern Him.