In case you don't know, I work at a private law firm in downtown Knoxville. Our office suite sits over halfway up the tallest building in the city, and our back office windows look east over the river. I'm the receptionist, which means I'm at work every morning by 8:00, and every morning I take a moment to stand in a back office and look out the windows to view the morning. In the winter especially, when the sunrise isn't so early, I get to see beautiful skies nearly every single day. My favorite are the rosy-golden mornings where the sky flames bright with the glory of the new day. With the glory of God. The Tennessee River winds slowly into the hills and then the distant, dusty, blue-ridge mountains. The brilliant sun peeks over them, then climbs above the horizon, sometimes hiding behind patches of lit-up clouds, and I can't bear not to look, even though it burns my eyes. I soak in the glory of the sun, the Son. It's the deep breath before I plunge into the busyness and distraction of the day. The calm before the storm. The remembrance of glory before the return to the seemingly mundane.
Doesn't it make sense that I would want to share such beauty and joy with the rest of the world? After all, what is Instagram for if not moments like these? My friends should be allowed to experience this. So, sometimes I share these moments.
Beautiful, right? And these tiny pictures don't even begin to do justice to how those moments took my breath away.
Yet, I'm finding that the more I try to share these moments, the less they take my breath away. Not because they are any less special and glorious. It's because my heart has changed.
I live in a self-obsessed culture that values "sharing everything." From hanging out with friends to daily outfits, from what you had for lunch to sunrises or sunsets, from the moment you wake up to the moment you fall asleep, it's expected that you share whatever it is with the rest of the world. And you're expected to have Instagram so you can snap a quick picture, make it fancy with some cool filter, then legitimize it with a witty caption before sharing it with the citizens of the Internet world. The intention is to record and share the moments of your life in a fun way so that you enjoy each moment to the fullest. But I've found that it has quite the opposite effect.
When we share pictures or thoughts with the Internet world, we want them to be appreciated; we want them to be "liked." In fact, we can start to put our hope and security in getting as many "likes" as we can, whether it's on an Instagram picture or a Facebook status. So much so that we feel good or bad about ourselves based on how many "likes" we get. So much so that we aren't even truly enjoying the moments that we're capturing on camera or in writing. Perhaps that isn't you, but I've seen it in some of my friends, and I've seen it in myself.
Which brings me back to taking pictures of the sunrise from an office window. There is nothing wrong with taking pictures of the sunrise. Nothing at all. But I get so caught up in taking pictures of the view (and hoping that people will like it) that I forget to enjoy it. I forget to bask in the glory of God that shines in the beauty of each day's sunrise. I get so caught up in sharing the moment that I forget to savor it. And aren't moments meant to savored before they are meant to be shared?
Every sunrise - and every beautiful or funny or delightful or entirely ordinary moment - is saturated with the kindness and love of the God who created and redeemed us. If we actually, truly delight in each moment as a gift of love from Him, we wouldn't worry about how many "likes" we get. Our security is no longer in how other people respond to our lives and the way we capture each moment. Our security is in Him, just as our heart's delight is in Him.
Now, I will still take pictures of the sunrise. But I hope that every morning I first take a long moment to savor its beauty, and I hope that some mornings I don't take pictures of it at all. Because each sunrise tells me that God loves me, and He likes me, and that is enough.
