The Evening and The Morning, The First Day

This can be hard, sometimes, the evening. The darkness. Sometimes evening is a peaceful time, but it more often is a time when we can’t see; a time of death; very often a time of hopelessness. Although the sun is shining outside today, inside of me right now as I write this, it is night.

During our evening, during our night, the hardest thing in the world, usually, is remembering how God sees a day. The evening, and then the morning, is the day. Not morning followed by night, but night followed by morning.

This may seem like mere semantics; what difference does it make? Oh, only all the difference in the world.

How God sees a day is how a day is. This means that a cycle is not completed by darkness. A cycle is completed by light. A cycle is not completed by failure; it’s completed by success. A cycle is not completed by death; it’s completed by life. It’s not completed by injury; but by healing. The frozen ground and bare trees are not the end of a cycle; they are the beginning of a cycle that will end with a bountiful harvest.

Some days, there just isn’t much to hold onto … but that’s only in the first part of the day. The day begins with darkness, but the path of the righteous, at least, shines brighter and brighter and brighter until the day is complete: the day is complete with full light.

Right now, you understand, I’m writing this to me. In this darkness, failure, hopelessness, emptiness, in all that I’m presently experiencing, I need to remember that this is the beginning only. Don’t kid yourself—it’s crazy-hard to remember that.

But think about what God designed our bodies to do, in the darkness. In the absence of light, our bodies produce more of some hormones and less of others, and this change causes what you may call a downward push, that is designed to cause us to sleep.

We are supposed to rest during the night. We are supposed to dream. We are supposed to sort out the past, learn from it, and in so doing, be better prepared for the future, for daylight and action. Instead, what we so often do is work harder. Because we can’t see, we panic, and expend energy we don’t have, trying to do something that can’t be done during the night.

I can’t bring the day. Neither can you. Have you ever noticed that? It doesn’t matter how quickly you would like the night to pass; the day comes when it is set to come. One of the precious few things we are able to predict in this world is the sunrise. Like nothing else that we experience, it is the reminder of God’s promise that in our lives, whatever the night we’re in right now, morning will come. At its set time, it will come.

I’m not really enjoying this; but joy comes in the morning.

If this message has been forwarded to you, and you would like to be added to Charissa’s mailing list please send your request to info@charissaschalk.com. Thank you.