The Blue FIres of Dawn

   I should explain the title. Years ago JoAnne and I were vacationing at a cabin in the Bradshaw Mountains. Early one morning I walked out to see the sun rise. It was the hour when sailors set their watches, the hour of the first real light. It rises above the horizon like blue flames. Scientists tell me that the sun has two "fires". The familiar sun is the burning ball that rises brilliantly over the line at daybreak. But there is another fire, a huge, blazing cloak of plasma that shoots out and away from the sun millions of miles. This plasma is the color of the flame on my gas stove. It is blue and it emits enough light to appear (on a clear morning) like an immense wall of flame long before the orb rises. It is so immense that the whole eastern horizon looks as if it is on fire. In Arizona, especially in the mountains, the air is so clear you can almost see its folds. 
   Now, that first time I saw it I was swept away. It's sort of compelling to realize that the sun is much larger than we think, taking that energized sphere of fire into account. And somewhere deep inside it revealed something to me of the nature of God, who is also much bigger than we think. In fact, God is so big, we cannot truly "think" him. We can only stand there and behold. So, whenever I see the Blue Fires of Dawn, I think of God and his glory, which arrives ahead of him and drives away the night.

   That's how we'll know he is coming. When his glory appears and we are awakened.