Interactive Faith Builders

Discussion: How awesome would it be if today, in our daily life, our entire city could hear our from rejoicing far away! In what areas of your own life do you recognize lack of joy and thanksgiving? Is your heart joyful in the everyday mundane stuff?

Oh this is a hard hitting question. Especially since I am typing this at bed time. Earlier in my life I would have immediately said mornings were stressful and least joyful. However, since returning to work the Lord has given me Psalm 118:24 which has made my mornings so much brighter and easier. Many days getting out of bed is so easy, I am still working on getting out of the house joyfully but we are getting there.

However, bedtimes are definitely one of the most stressful times in our house. You see I have children that are just like me -- night owls. We all would rather stay up late and sleep late in the morning. But as we must get up early in the morning, we must go to bed early at night. My 8 year old understands the concept, she doesn't like it but she does understand it. My 4 year old is beginning to get the idea, he doesn't like it any better than his sister, however. The 2 year old just doesn't understand the concept at ALL. He wants to do everything his way and going to bed early doesn't fit into his plans. He lets everyone else in the house know that as well. It is these nights that really lack joy and thanksgiving.

As I sit and type this, however, I realize that many times they are just feeding off of my own lack of joy and dislike at stopping the evenings activities in order to get to bed. However as I look at that verse closely I see a couple of things that speak to me about my evening attitudes.

The verse says "This is the DAY the Lord hath made" First of all it doesn't specify a specific part of the day. it just says day, that means the WHOLE day, morning, noon, afternoon and night. Secondly the Jewish day begins at Sundown, just before we prepare for bed. The original audience for this text were the Jews and that is the way they interpreted the Psalm -- day beginning in the evening. Not only does it not let me off the hook by saying morning, but even if we slide off into concentrating on the early parts of the day that still coincides with the evening times.

I believe this verse just became my whole day verse......