The Eternal Enthronement of Christ

The throne of the universe is not vacant.

Last week I had the privilege of worshiping God while watching the sunrise every day. It rained 5 of the 6 days. That did not matter. We would show up and it would be dark. We would leave and it was light out.

Psalm 18:28 "You, O LORD, keep my lamp burning; my God turns my darkness into light."

Our God is faithful. He is completely complete. Nothing is lacking, our cups overflow. The dark places turn to light.

DJ says it all goes back to worship. Obviously, he means right worship - that is, worshiping the Living God, our God enthroned on the throne of all creation. In this past week I have though a lot about repentance. A heart of repentance leads to right worship. We no longer hide and suffer in the darkness when we repent and worship the One who is Worthy. Rather, we turn to the light. This Johannine language is synonymous with the vine and the branches (which should bear fruit). Both the Vine and the Light nourish our situations - however fruitless or dark. It's all going back to repentance and right worship, for this is when fruit is born and light overwhelms darkness.

Sometimes I doubt this power. I doubt His ability fill me up and sustain me. I let my miniature perceptions of what I think God can do take over.

This, too, was revealed to me through sunrise worship. Every morning I needed to wake up at 6:30am in order to get to the meeting spot on time. For the last 10 weeks I have struggle mightily with getting out of bed. Every day I would get up at the last possible minute, or just sleep until lunch time. None of this was enjoyable or controllable, it seemed. Interestingly, when the situation was soaked in prayer, I had no problems getting up.

Furthermore, for this past week, I woke on time each day at 630am. Now, I did not find this to be super strange, since when I snowboard I tend to sleep similarly since I am nervous about not waking up. On the last day, I realized some of the power of what was going on. I set my alarm and went to sleep. In the morning I woke up thinking I had overslept because I checked my phone for the time and my phone had lost battery. Unbelievably, I had woken up without an alarm on the 6th straight day of 630am wake ups. On top of all of that, I was fully awake all of the days and never needed to nap, which is unheard of for me, if I wake up that early (especially 6 days in a row, and without anything to do since it's spring break).

This all got me to start thinking about God's faithfulness and some of the reality of His work. Here are some statistics of the mornings based on my calculations:

5 out of 6 mornings it was cloudy as light filled the day.
1 out of 6 mornings the sun rose in the clear morning sky.
That's a 16.67% Sunrise Success Rate (SSR)

This is what I perceived. Yet, the sun rose every day! God was 6 for 6 on this one (100%). Clouds veiled my perception of what was really going on. The same thing happens in my view of God's power, and thus his enthronement. I do not notice my veiled perceptions and that I'm the one who is not seeing clearly, as opposed to God being the one who is not enthroned or powerful.

DJ helped me out with this one. Today is not March 21, 2011 anno Domini. It is not the 2011 year of our Lord. That's a veiled perception. Every year is the year of our Lord, who is enthroned for all eternity.

In light [ :-) ] of this, I am thankful for three things:
1) There has never been a vacancy on the throne of creation
2) Seated on the throne is the powerful Lord of creation, who is faithful to His word
3) The sun rises 100% of the time all the time. Test it. It'll come through every single time!