Waiting For The Son To Rise

by:  Lonnie Lane

I had occasion to be out of the house at 5:30 a.m. this
week. I decided to take the opportunity to drive to the beach, which is only
fifteen minutes from my home (Hallelu-Yah!),
and watch the sunrise. I had time to pick up a cup of coffee before arriving
some time after 6:00 a.m. I wasn’t sure what time the sun would come up but how
long could it be, right? So I watched and waited, thinking of how fortunate the
waving grasses on the dunes are, getting to see the sunrise every morning. Did
they know how lucky they are to be there? Is their waving in the breeze a sign
of their joyful anticipation?

At first I sat in my car which I parked facing the ocean and
drank my coffee. It was still pretty dark, though I could see a flicker of
white foam playing on the waves nearest the shore. The
sky had banks of varying grey clouds sitting just above the horizon in the
still black sky. After a while I opened the door to step out of the car and was
surprised at the sound of the ocean roar. With no other sounds like the voices
of people or birds, just the sound of the pounding surf seemed so powerful. It
was too dark to see any more than just the undulating delineation between the
sand and the water, but the sound surprised me as it was more of a roar than I
expected. As I stood and watched, I thought of the ongoing surging power in the
ocean waves continually thrusting toward shore and yet how, try as the sea
might over and over and over to come up further onto the beach, God had set a
boundary that even the tides could not trespass.  In one of my favorite passages in Scripture,
it says, “I was there….when He set for
the sea its boundary so that the
water would not transgress His command”
(Proverbs 8:27, 29). Imagine, when God said, “Let there be…” He commanded the
mighty ocean to go just so far and no more. Even the ocean obeys Him!

That passage in Proverbs is one of many places in the Old
Testament where revelations of Yeshua are hidden. You can only find them once
you know Yeshua. It’s like those paintings with the hidden picture of Jesus in
a drawing of something entirely unrelated to Him. But the more you stare at it,
all of a sudden you see it. There He
is and from then on you can’t look at that drawing without seeing Him. It’s
like that with the Old Testament. Once you “see” who He is, you find Him
everywhere! Some of the most precious “pictures” of Yeshua are found tucked
into verses in the Old Covenant like this one in Proverbs 8. It says, “Counsel is mine and sound wisdom; I am understanding, power is mine. By me kings reign, and rulers decree justice. By me princes rule, and nobles, all who judge rightly. I love those who love me; and those who diligently seek me will find me.” 
Sound familiar? Who could that be but Yeshua? I wish I knew how He
Himself related to these verses. It goes on to say, talking about God creating
the world, “When He established
the heavens, I was there. When He inscribed
a circle on the face of the deep, when He made
firm the skies above, when the springs
of the deep became fixed, When He set for
the sea its boundary so that the
water would not transgress His command, when He marked
out the foundations of the earth;  Then I was beside
Him, as a master
workman; And I was daily His delight, Rejoicing
always before Him, Rejoicing in the world, His earth, and  having my delight in
the sons of men”  (Proverbs
8:14-17; 27-31). I love seeing His joy in this passage, including that He
delights in us!

This passage is like getting an eye witness account of what
went on at creation. And Yeshua was there! Well, actually He was more than just
there, He participated in creation. “He
was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him,
and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. The Light shines in the darkness….” (John 1:2-5a). And here I was, waiting
for the light to shine in the darkness, though I know that’s not what that
verse means. There are dark places
in the world for which we pray for the One who is the Light of the world to
enter in and change hearts. But for right now, I was standing at ocean’s edge just as the dawn was
dawning (pun intended) and thinking about how I know the One who created all
before me in such beauty. I marveled at how He created the surging power of the
ocean as well as the slender stalks of the gently waving grasses. How diverse
is our God, how powerful yet tender He is.

I continued to wait, the soft yielding sand under my feet, and
feeling the early morning breeze on my face, as it played with my hair. I was
glad I had my jacket as it was a bit chilly even for North
Florida.  I chatted with the
Lord, telling Him how beautiful His creation is and how awesome and vast and
powerful the ocean roar reminded me He is. The
sands of the beach brought to mind His promises to Abraham
to make his descendent as numerous as the sands of the shore
when He told Abraham, “I will greatly bless you,
and I will greatly multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens and as the sand which is on
the seashore” (Genesis 22:17). I marveled
at how I am one of those grains of sand, all these centuries later. I thought
of how one day when I get to heaven I want to meet my
great-great-great…granddaddy Abraham. Even as I write those words I’m smiling
because I feel such a connection to him, such an affection for him, as one
would feel for a beloved grandfather. He is Granddaddy Abraham
to me. I expect I’ll want to hug him when I finally meet him
face to face. I hope he doesn’t mind. 

The sky
was getting a little brighter. The
cloud formations were enjoying making shapes of themselves. I was sure one was
of a horse and rider looking straight at me, though this one was not “thrown
into the sea” but riding above it in the clouds. I began to sing softly, “I will sing unto the Lord for He has
triumphed gloriously, the horse and rider thrown into the sea. My Lord, my God,
my strength, my song, and now He has become my victoree- ee- ee…. The Lord is God and (clap) I will praise Him, my father’s God and I
will exalt Him,” (from Exodus 15:1,2). Thinking about where
those verses originated, when Israel
had just crossed the Red Sea on dry land and escaped the Egyptian army, I
thought, I had ancestors who were there when God did that for Israel. I’m
connected to that moment in Israel’s
history genealogically. How they danced on the safe-side shore before the Lord,
with tambourines in hand keeping the beat. “Miriam the prophetess, Aaron’s sister, took
the timbrel (tambourine) in her
hand, and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dancing” (15:20). How about that!
Tambourines. Would you think that Israel
would have been doing much singing and tambourine playing in Egypt? They must have, or Miriam wouldn’t have had a tambourine
to take with her. Did they worship the Lord in their singing? Did they dance in
Egypt
too or was their dancing a spontaneous expression of joy they’d never known before
while still in slavery?

I thought of how we sing
that same song I just sang today (did you sing along with me?) which  Miriam first sang: “Miriam answered them, “Sing to the LORD, for He is highly exalted; The
horse and his rider He has hurled into the sea” (:21). Was Miriam Israel’s
first worship leader? I wondered.  I
couldn’t remember another time before that time where Israel was
singing God’s praises all together.  And
they danced. And later David danced. How did dancing before the Lord ever get
lost to God’s people and it considered improper to do? I dance before the Lord
often. Can’t stay still in worship sometimes. Have to go in the back of the
church and do my two step or twirl – sometimes I just have to. I wonder, could
Miriam have been my ancestor? Y’just never know. I’ll find out in heaven one
day, the day I get to hug Granddaddy Abraham.

Meanwhile, this was taking longer than I expected. I
was still waiting for the sunrise, the horse and rider having melted into a
stratus layer of clouds a while ago. I was beginning to wonder how long it
would be before the sun actually appeared. I realized how much lighter the sky
now was when a jogger went by near the shore line as I could see his silhouette.
That’s when I also noticed a few birds poking around near the waters’ edge, one or two
occasionally taking flight in a circle and landing near them again. Was he (or
she) on the prowl for breakfast in the water? Another man walked onto the beach
from behind me, Coke® in hand. Here I was in a jacket, socks and clogs and
jeans and he arrived in shorts, sandals and a short sleeved shirt. Brrrr.
Didn’t seem to bother him. I had the feeling he comes often. He had a camera in
hand and began focusing on the birds and the sky which was now lighting up
considerably behind the clouds. Good idea I thought and went back to the car
for my cell phone to take some photos.

I took a few of the
birds, the still waving grasses and the cloud covering but decided I might as
well wait for the real thing to happen. And when was that going to happen
already? It seemed I’ve been out here a long time. The
coffee was long gone, I was now hungry. And I was getting tired. After all, I’d
been up since just after 5:00 a.m. And truth be told, I was just a bit bored. I
looked to the sky. It clearly was light now, no longer black or even dark grey.
The clouds were lighter grey. The whole things looked like a winter day in Philadelphia – grey. Was
this it? Did the sun come up but was hidden behind all those clouds so there
would be no spectacular sunrise as I had expected? Well, this would be
anticlimactic if that was it. I was expecting a blaze of glory, a burst of pure
light and color to flood the sky from the horizon. But so far, nothing like
that had happened. It only just seemed like a dreary day. And if this is all
there was, I was loosing interest quickly. I might just leave and go on with my
ordinary day.

But my thoughts went to
awaiting the coming of the Lord. Now that will be a spectacular blaze of glory.
He will no doubt be accompanied by pure light – why, He IS pure light!! Color
will bow before Him, the angelic trumpet will sound the alarm to those with
ears to hear. What anticipation I have for that. But what, I wonder, if it
takes much longer than I, than we, expect? What if the ordinary stays before us
day after day after day and we get hungry,
and instead of waiting for the Lord we start looking to satisfy our hunger for
what only He should fill somewhere other than in Him. What if we misperceive
the half light for the full light and decide that this is probably all there is
and He’s not really going to come in that pure light we’re told He is. What if
we get tired of waiting for Him.

Yeshua
warned, “Take heed, keep on the alert; for you do not know
when the appointed time will come…. Therefore, be on the alert—for you do not know
when the master of the house is
coming, whether in the evening, at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or in the morning—  in case he should come suddenly
and find you asleep. What I say
to you I say to all, ‘Be on the alert!’” (Mark 13:33-37). What if many of
us begin to fall asleep spiritually, giving up waiting for the Lord to come
because He didn’t come when we expected or wanted Him to come? What if He’s later in returning
than our personal theology allowed for? Will we loose interest and forsake
staying alert spiritually and go back to the ways of the world around us?  Or what if, when He doesn’t come as we keep saying
He will, people around us tell us, “Oh, it’ll never happen. It never has and it
never will; things will just go on as they always have.” Peter warned us about
such people: “Know
this first of all, that in the last days mockers will come
with their mocking, following after
their own lusts, and saying, ‘Where
is the promise of His coming? For ever
since
the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of
creation’” (2 Peter 3:3, 4).

These thoughts came to me, just when I was beginning to think
what I came to see wasn’t going to happen and the day would just go on as
usual, just getting a little brighter grey on a cloudy day. But I took Peter’s
words to be for me right now and determined to wait for the sunrise and not
give up. I then noticed the birds seem to be waiting. The
man with the Coke® and the camera seems to still be waiting. The minute I made the decision to wait I saw it. A slight
tinge of the brightest pink skimmed along the edge of a cloud closest to the
water. Could it be that my faith would be rewarded after all and the long
awaited sun will rise before my eyes? Forgetting I was tired and hungry now, I
stood, camera poised and waited some more. But even this too took longer than I
expected.

The jogger now passed by going the other way. Another man
arrived on a bicycle, leaned it against a post and walked toward the shore,
nodding to me, while speaking softly to either himself, someone on the phone in
the ear I couldn’t see, or the Lord. About that time I realized that a great
many birds were now congregating at the waters’ edge, more than there had been
before. Where did they all come from? 
And from where? Where do sea birds sleep at night? There were no trees around. I wonder. Well, they were all up now and excitedly
interacting while some did the circular sweep overhead and swooped back down
again. They actually seemed excited
about something. The only thing to
be excited about that I could imagine is the sunrise. Most of them faced the
horizon. We waited together.  

Then almost suddenly, there was color on the clouds, pink at
first, then yellow. Amazing yellow – brightest white yellow-gold. I raised my
cell phone and began to take pictures, but put it down when I decided I’d
rather see it directly rather
than through the screen of a cell phone. I wanted the real thing. What happened
was worth every wait however long it would have taken. I can hardly believe
this miracle happens every morning. Every morning! A burst of pure white gold
fanned out from one place in a cloud as if the Lord of Glory Himself was about
to emerge in all His majesty and splendor. 
It was breathtakingly beautiful, astoundingly magnificent. God dropped a
verse into my spirit at that moment: “His face was like the sun shining in its strength” (Revelation 1:16).
I could barely look at it, it was so bright. One day, we will see His face that
bright; pure light in the face of our King. Yeshua!  

I realized that the birds seemed to be in
a state of ecstasy, flying in large sweeping circles, calling to one another in
a cacophony of bird song or moving about on the ground as if they were now dancing. Were they
worshipping? What a celebration. This take place every morning!  I was so glad that I waited it out and was
here for this manifestation of God’s glory and beauty.

As I walked back to my car I prayed that
God’s people will not tire of waiting for Yeshua’s return. They will not allow
unbelievers to cause them to second guess their expectations of Him coming in
glory. They will not get tired or distracted or discouraged or turn and look to
something other than Him to satisfy their spiritual hunger. I prayed that
Yeshua and Yeshua alone would always be what we wait for, and that we would
always look to God for His grace to ride out the times when it seems He’s
forgotten us or His promises. Years ago I was taught, “God is often late, but
He’s always on time.” As I checked the time later, the sun had arrived exactly
when predicted. Exactly on the dot of the hour. Yeshua will arrive exactly at
the moment the Father has ordained. Not a moment later. We may have our
doctrines and theories of when Yeshua will return but only the Father really
knows: “But of that day and hour no one knows,
not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone” (Matthew
24:36).  God knows. He has planned the entire
culmination of the age to the minutest detail and we can trust Him.

We may have dark clouds in our lives, and cloudy
days when the Son does not seem to be shining. But we wait for Him, because “we know that God causes all things to work together for good to
those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28). So when we’re waiting for the
Son to come through the clouds with great glory, even if the wait is longer and
harder than we anticipate, let the Son rise in your heart so that you wait with Him for Him!!  He is coming. For
a little word-play here, He is worth the wait to know the weight of glory that
awaits you. You may have some difficulty between now and when you see Him, but
it is brief compared to eternity. Wait it out; God is making you more like
Yeshua in the process.  “For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an
eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison…” (2 Corinthians 4:17). 

We have experienced the rising of the Son
in our hearts if we are His, and one day we will see Him come, just as sure as
the sun rises every morning. Yeshua was more than likely talking about us, about
you and me, when He said, “Then they will see THE SON OF MAN COMING IN CLOUDS with great
power and glory” (Mark 13:26). Glory to God!!

Reprint of this article is permitted as long as you use the following; Use by permission by Messianic Vision, www.sidroth.org, 2011. 

Scripture quotations are from the New American Standard Bible Copyright ©1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation, La Habra, Calif.  All rights reserved. Used by permission.