This picture really doesn't do justice to the gorgeous sunset I was trying to capture on film (actually, it's a digital media card). There were bright oranges blazing next to not-so-subdued purples washed in a hue of sky-blue. Words cannot describe, and neither does this picture.

I must have tried to capture those beautiful colors with my camera phone twenty times. Each time it just kinda came out like this. Much grayer.

In my sermon this week I talked about how I was such a grouch this week, about how I was in a spiritual funk. I was spiritually gray. And no matter how many times I tried this week, I couldn't get out of this dreary grayness.

Maybe this past week was a lesson for me. Maybe I needed to learn how to wait on the Lord. Perhaps the brilliant colors of joy, love and peace were around me every second of every day. Perhaps my grayness is like this picture. It's only a snapshot of my life that doesn't really do justice to the truth of what is happening.

When I look at this picture, the first thing I think of is not what I see, but what I saw with my own eyes when I took the photo. I see this rather plain picture and I immediately think of the brilliance of that sunset.

I think this is what joy is. When we look at a snapshot of our lives; when we are in difficult times; when it's been a gray day, week, month or year, we need to look beyond it. There is brilliance in our lives that is far greater than any sunset...

...because on Easter Sunday, the son rose.

Maybe all I need to do to move beyond my spiritual funk is to move closer to the cross and by doing so experience the power of Jesus' resurrection all the more.