Scripture
For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime! Weeping may last through the night, but joy comes with the morning.
~Psalm 30:5, NLT
Quote
Faith believes in spite of the circumstances.
~Adrian Rogers
I will share a devotional thought with you today that I shared with the Pastors on Monday. It comes from Jonathan Cohn’s BOOK OF MYSTERIES. We begin with a question: which comes first, night or day? It sounds like a chicken and egg question. We naturally think of day as preceding night. This is also the way the world thinks. We go from day to night, from youth to aging, from strength to weakness, and ultimately from life to death. This however, is not God’s way; when He created the universe it was not day before night. Genesis 1:3-5 gives us the details…Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. Then he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day” and the darkness “night.” And evening passed and morning came, marking the first day. Did you catch that? Evening preceding morning. This was a revelation to me but it is common knowledge to orthodox Jews, their day begins at 6:00 p.m. Yes, they get the night over with and then celebrate the day. So in God’s order, we go from night to day, from darkness to light, from weakness to strength, from despair to hope, from guilt to innocence, from tears of sorrow to joy and from death to life.
As John Newton said before his promotion, “I am departing the land of the dying and going to the land of the living.” Yes my dear friend, sorrow may spend the night with us but joy is coming in the morning. C.S. Lewis says the worse thing about grief is its every dayness. Grief doesn’t stop by for a visit, it moves in. It is there every waking moment and it refuses to leave. Think about it like this: we are enduring the worse first because Jesus always saves the best for last just like the wine at the wedding in Cana of Galilee. We may be suffering in the darkness at present but JOY is coming; just count on it!
EXTRA
Yesterday was a hot one. I think it was close to 100 at 6:00 pm but I am not complaining. Praise God for A/C and shade trees. Have a great day and thanks for reading the blog.