Dusk To Dawn

Before dawn I sat and drank my coffee; all was dark except for a few twinkling stars and a home in the distance that obviously had left the porch light on. I was surrounded by quietness. It is said that its always darkest before the dawn, onimous for sure...but isnt that how it feels in our spirits sometimes? Our lives are so dark with sin before we can see the light of Jesus in our darkest hour. Oh, we can't see it at the time but that's how it always is and always will be. You see, the darkness of sin so blocks out most light of any kind, especially the light of the love of Christ. We get so buried deep in our sin that it is all encompassing. Yes, maybe in the distance we can see the glimmer of another light here and there but that's about it. We see the light of Jesus shining in others' lives but the dark shroud of sin is so thick over our own lives that it's hard to imagine walking in such light at all. It seems impossible to even dare hoping to walk in such light. It looks and probably feels like being caught up in a never ending nightmare of darkness. 

Ahhhh, but here is where the veil gets torn! The sun is creeping up to the edge of the horizon. The light of a new day sheds hope over the landscape and the dawn is here! Someone, probably with a familiar face, bumps into you in the supermarket, invites you to share lunch and the light is shed! Someone calls you on the phone perhaps, comes to your door as you felt the unction to invite them over and the light creeps into your house. Maybe, you stand at the bedside of a dying loved one and wonder if the pain will ever subside and a hand slips quietly into yours as a prayer is prayed. Whatever it looks like, your dawn is here. The sun will go down and the sun will rise and it ALWAYS rises and the hope of glory slips into that tear in your spirit, that wound, that gap where your vulnerability is exposed. The hope of glory dispels the darkness and the day is new, his mercies to you are new. Your old things, the shroud, the yoke, the burden and the weight of sin and darkness are gone. The light has come.

As I sat on my porch watching the darkness before the dawn I noticed in the distance another light from another farm come on and then another and then another until the darkness is hardly noticeable for the twinkling of the lights on the horizon. It's as if one light was triggering another to come on. It was as if a chain reaction of lights were whispering to each other, "wake up, it's time to wake up. It's a new day"! I smile as I think about how dark it had been and now here was the sun peeking over the horizon to bring the ultimate light to my day. The rooster crowed and I knew undeniably that my day would soon be filled with things like phone calls or prayers with a friend and maybe even a chance meeting or two. I rose from my porch swing and turned off my porch light for the light had indeed come.