One of my favorite times to be outside is the time of astronomical twilight. This period of time happens twice every day - once in the morning, between the first hint of light and the actual sunrise, and once in the evening, between the sunset and the last hint of light. In other words, it is the time in which it is both dark and light at the same time.
Both and, somehow, neither.
And friends, if that is not the story of my life.
This life I live is somehow both darkness and light and in the same breath, it is neither. Because I understand how it is that God works all things together for good, how my own knowledge and perspective is finite, and how things turn at the most unexpected places in any story.
I have lived my life for long enough to never believe this scene will go unedited. To never think that today has the final word on how this season will be written in the final book. To understand that tomorrow really can put a new spin on today that I never saw coming, one that I can't explain, one that I can't even fathom right now.
What feels like a letdown might be a setup. What feels like a failure might be a victory. What feels like a closed door and a disappointment might be keeping me from something worse...or leading me to something better.
See, what I know about my God is that He is always working. And because He is always working, things are always subject to change.
As Amos says, God makes light into darkness and darkness into light (5:8), and my life has been such a living testimony of that that there's not a day that goes by that I don't believe it.
It's a tremendous gift, or so I've been told, to have the kind of faith that can hold onto something like this. To have a faith that can keep believing in the hard times. To be able to believe in the things I have not seen, as surely as I believe in the things that I have, based on nothing more than knowing that this is the very character and heart of God. He is always doing this.
For me, this life we live - this life of faith - is just the long version of my favorite time of day. It's astronomical twilight all the time, that beautiful time when it is both dark and light and at the same time, neither. It's that cool time when all the amazing colors are plastered across the sky and the reds, oranges, and purples overtake the blue that we can sometimes feel so confident in. And at any moment, God can flip the whole thing and it will totally take our breath away.
It's a truly beautiful space to live in. With the grace and glory of our God who tips the scales and turns things on their heads and edits this scene over and over and over again until the darkness and the light are so intermingled, so intertwined, that all these beautiful colors have overtaken everything.
And it is both daybreak and it is not. And it is both sunset and it is not. And it is both darkness and light and it is neither. Until God speaks it.
And then, it is glorious.
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