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Want to Strengthen Your Faith? Watch a Sunset

Kathy Roman | Sep 16, 2017

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Kathy Roman | Sep 16, 2017

The views expressed in our content reflect individual perspectives and do not represent the official views of the Baha'i Faith.

It’s no secret that watching the sunset can be a wonderful grounding experience, but did you know it can also be an extremely powerful tool to strengthen your faith in God?

Every sunset is also a sunrise. It all depends on where you stand. – Karl Schmidt

Here’s how a sunset can strengthen your faith: We all experience times of doubt. Is this difficulty ever going to end? Am I ever going to get well? Will I get the job I need? Sometimes we may be betrayed by a loved one and we find it difficult to trust again.

For some reason when my children come to me with doubts about their futures, it all seems so very clear. Of course they will pass through the tests they now experience. Of course God will see them through. He always has in the past, so what would stop Him from stepping in now? The sun always rises and sets, right?

When it comes to myself, the way isn’t always so clear. My rational mind acknowledges that God has helped me out of some pretty harrowing situations in the past, but my uncertain, skeptical mind says this time could be different. So what makes me think anything has changed? God hasn’t changed. He is changeless and eternal. What has changed is that I am giving in to doubt. The Baha’i teachings ask us to forego doubt by finding faith and certainty:

O Fleeting Shadow! Pass beyond the baser stages of doubt and rise to the exalted heights of certainty. Open the eye of truth, that thou mayest behold the veilless Beauty and ‘exclaim: Hallowed be the Lord, the most excellent of all creators! – Baha’u’llah, The Hidden Words, p. 25.

Every sunset brings the promise of a new dawn.Ralph Waldo Emerson

So with the inspiration of enlightened souls and the Baha’i teachings, I came across the powerful secret of making a practice of watching the sunset each night whenever possible. I found that even a brief moment to acknowledge its setting is enough. What this does is show us, on a very profound level, that God is always going to be there for us. As we watch the sun go down each night, we know without question that with each dawn it will rise again, and our faith is strengthened. Chattering, doubtful minds cannot challenge such strong proof and promise of a new day to come. If this small manifestation of God’s power and constancy cannot be disputed, how much greater are the other myriad signs of His love manifest in this world?

You want proof there’s a God? Look outside, watch a sunset.Frank Peretti

God is always seeking you. Every sunset. Every clear blue sky. Each ocean wave. The starry hosts of night. He blankets each new day with the invitation, ‘I am here.’Louie Giglio

When I admire the wonders of the sunset or the beauty of the moon, my soul expands in the worship of the creator. – Mahatma Gandhi

The Baha’i teachings say that sunsets and sunrises are times that symbolize new beginnings, new chances and new realities:

After each sunset comes a sunrise. The spiritual light of the world has risen again from the eastern horizon. The night is finished; the day is come and the first rays of the dawn are destroying the shadows, dispersing the clouds, making the plants to grow, the trees to become verdant and ornamenting the flower-beds with roses. – Abdu’l-Baha, Divine Philosophy, p. 80.

To make this kind of meditation even more powerful, awaken, even if just for a moment, at dawn. The soothing silence of the dawn brings with it clarity, peace and trust:

When the sun appears above the horizon the next morning, even if you’re asleep when it happens, your body will be attuned to the earth’s rhythms. You’ll click with the fact that as promised, your friend has returned. The sun has risen every day of your life. It will continue to do so for the rest of your time on earth. Connecting with this truth that the sun will never let you down, the soul will relearn critical trust, which will activate healing energy. – Anthony William

Believe in God like you believe in the sunrise. Not because you can see it, but because you can see all it touches.C. S. Lewis

Evidence suggests that early people observed the rising and setting of the sun in their daily spiritual practice. For many years the Native Americans have stayed in tune with the harmonies of nature by observing changes in sunrise and sunset positions. In undertaking this practice, you will repeatedly witness proof that the sun will indeed set and rise again, just as it always has—just as God’s love and protection is there for us every moment of our lives. If it were not so, we would scarcely survive for an instant:

What outpouring flood can compare with the stream of His all-embracing grace, and what blessing can excel the evidences of so great and pervasive a mercy? There can be no doubt whatever that if for one moment the tide of His mercy and grace were to be withheld from the world, it would completely perish. For this reason, from the beginning that hath no beginning the portals of Divine mercy have been flung open to the face of all created things, and the clouds of Truth will continue to the end that hath no end to rain on the soil of human capacity, reality and personality their favors and bounties. Such hath been God’s method continued from everlasting to everlasting. – Baha’u’llah, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha’u’llah, pp. 68-69.

With each sunset we witness an ending, but with each ending comes a new beginning—a fresh new start full of hope, new possibilities and a chance to renew our faith. So when you watch the sunset tonight, above all else, be comforted and assured, that just as you know it will rise again at the break of dawn, you’re absolutely certain that God’s love for you will remain forever constant, enduring, and true.

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Comments

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  • Susan HalseyBelton Singer
    Mar 5, 2019
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    Thank you! This will be used on our social media page! Perfect.
  • Sep 18, 2017
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    I will think about this article with my next Sunset/Sunrise. I will think about all of the great writings and quotes that you included. Great work!!
  • Sep 18, 2017
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    Oh, how wonderful. Reading this the sun went down in Dusseldorf, Germany, after a rainy afternoon. I´m at the airport and had to charge my laptop before the flight to China and the plug was at the boarding-station. When the lady from the airline arrived, she said very friendly: „Please stay. Its no problem at all!“ Then I watched her with some sidelooks and asked her: „You believe in God?“ Of course she did. I finished reading this, the sun was gone, but it returned in my heart. Thank you Bahá’u’lláh, the remaining sun of enlightment, the revealer of Gods ...messages for our time, the source of Kathys wonderful writings.
    Read more...
    • Sep 18, 2017
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      Thank you for taking us to Dusseldorf, dear Reinhard! You have connected us all wonderfully in spirit as we share your beautiful experience. As for your praise of Baha'u'llah and your kind words to me... I am left in tears.
  • Sep 16, 2017
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    Eloquent and poetic article! <3
  • Jennifer
    Sep 16, 2017
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    Great post, Kathy! You reminded me of this verse from Baha’u'llah's Gems of Divine Mysteries: "Ponder then, O My friend, the words “firm faith” that have been mentioned in this verse. It saith that the heavens and the earth, the throne, the sun and the moon, all have been created to the end that His servants may have unswerving faith in His presence in His days."
    • Jennifer
      Sep 16, 2017
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      You are quite welcome!
    • Sep 16, 2017
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      Thank you Jennifer! ... and thank you for that most beautiful quote from Baha'u'llah!
  • Mark David Vinzens
    Sep 16, 2017
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    The Self is the Lord of all beings. As the spokes are held together in the hub and in the felly of a wheel, just so all beings, all creatures, all gods, all worlds, all lives, are held together in the Self (Bṛhadāraṇyaka II. V.15; The Upaniṣad, Trs. By Svami Prapavananda and Frederick. Manchester 1947)
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