Blue Skies, Kind God
“Why is the sky blue?” The question popped into my head one morning as I was looking at it through my window. I wasn’t thinking about the science of refracted light that affect the sun’s rays racing through the earth’s atmosphere, but about why God made the sky like that. The night sky is black, with up to 5,000 points of light visible to the human eye. Why wasn’t the daytime sky created so that the stars could still be seen, and why not pink or green?
Maybe my speculations are just that, but I wonder if it has to do with the thoughtfulness of our kind Creator. “Sky blue” is easy on the eyes and is a pleasing canvas that gives the perfect background for the whites, grays, and blacks for the Artist’s brush. And if the stars were also visible during the day, the busyness of the sky would give no rest to sensitive eyes—the visual clutter would distract and weary us. Like a thoughtful, creative, and loving parent arranges his/her child’s environment to promote discovery, curiosity, delight, and learning, the God of all creation has made our earthly home accommodating, challenging, stimulating, and awe-inspiring.
Such is the thoughtfulness of the Creator in whose image we are made. But he doesn’t get any credit from many of the human beneficiaries of his kind-heartedness. He is largely ignored.
As wonderful as he is as Creator, it is his kindness revealed in his action toward rebellious and lost people which best displays the character of this God. “…when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us…” (Titus 3:4). Nothing in human experience comes close to the expression of love exhibited in the redemptive actions of the Triune God on behalf of undeserving, unconcerned, and unholy sinners. “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21).
To be unfazed by the unfathomable humility and self-sacrifice of the Triune God is to miss out on the purpose of our existence! What he has done for sinners in Christ’s life, death, and resurrection is the beginning, not the end, of God’s plan to lavish his kindness on his own. He “raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:6-7). We haven’t seen anything yet! Our kind and loving Creator/Savior has plans for an ever-expanding, unstinting, and unending display of his lovingkindness to those who are his own.
Bolstered by the certainty of God’s innate kindness displayed in creation and the cross, we can look through the fog of the culture wars to the breathtaking brilliance of the Lamb slain for us. And we can invite others to join us in responding to this humble, gentle, and compassionate Lord of all, knowing that “God’s kindness is meant to lead [them] to repentance” (Romans 2:4).