The Distance between Day and Night

By Thom Hunter
http://thom-signsofastruggle.blogspot.com/

And I can see a light that is coming for the heart that holds on
A glorious light beyond all compare
And there will be an end to these troubles
But until that day comes
We'll live to know You here on the earth.
-- Matt Redman
In the soft moonlight of midnight, shadows dancing against the baby-blue wall of
the nursery from a cottonwood tree moving gently in the nighttime breeze, it is
party time. The baby is awake and searching for his toes, his pacifier, his bl
anket, his mommy or his daddy. He is ready for his day to begin; he wants to ex
plore. Yes . . . in the soft moonlight of midnight. Smiling, cooing, laughing.
In the first 10 years of our marriage, Lisa and I had five babies: four boys an
d then, a daughter. It was common among them to go through a period when they w
ould have their nights and days mixed up. The normal waking in the middle-of th
e-night with hunger pains or indigestion or a wet diaper was not a huge problem.
You pick them up, hold them, mumble a few comforting words, or, if you're Lisa
, sing a lullaby, play with their toes and hopefully they close their eyes befor
e you do. That was all normal. It was the periods when they ignored the realit
ies of time and began their day in middle of my night that were hard.
With all their potent body language -- whether red-faced bawling or cherub-faced
giggling -- they would say with all the force of an eight-pounder: "You are no
t putting me down." "You are not leaving me in this dark room."
And we didn't. Not on those occasions where we knew the baby was just a bit mix
ed up; confused about the distance between day and night, oblivious to dark and
light. These were not "I want" moments. These were "I need" times.
Sometimes we just need to yield ourselves to the "care for me" and "care about m
e" cries of those around us who are confused, even if our more common-sense mode
tells us that perhaps we should just give them a pat on the back, flip the ligh
t back off and close the door. Cry your way through it; you'll be better for it
. I'm tired.
Oh no, You never let go
Through the calm and through the storm.
Oh no, You never let go
In every high and every low
Oh no, You never let go
Lord, You never let go of me.
-- Matt Redman
Sometimes we are the crying child and sometimes we are the comforting one who fl
ips on the light and stays at the side of the weeping and the wailing and the gn
ashing. And sometimes we're the child who lies awake and refuses to call out, o
r the busy and self-absorbed who walks straight down the hall and past the room
in which the bewildered toss in fits and turns.
And then, there's God. He never lets go. His perfect love casts out fear. Som
etimes we don't see it because of the shadows that cast strange thoughts within
our minds, but He is always there.
The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you n
or forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. -- Deuteronomy 31:8

Can you imagine what it would be like to go into our battles and know -- despite
the pounding of our hearts and the furious flow of adrenalin -- that someone is
at each shoulder, on our left and and on our right, at every step? What if we k
new that there was someone right in front of us, fully armed and determined to t
ake the charge? What if we had the assurance that behind us is someone who will
catch us if we fall, and move before us so the battle we think is lost becomes
a victory instead?
Imagine . . . and know.
I remember watching the movie Gettysburg a few years back. I'm not a huge Civil
War buff and I have no desire to march in a re-enactment, but there is a stunni
ng moment from that movie that has favorably haunted me from the time I saw it.
It has even been re-enacted in my dreams, which is as close as I want to get to
the reality of it.
I don't remember the battle, but I can't forget the scene. It is a pivotal mome
nt and will turn the war. Two armies -- the North and the South -- awake from a
night of encampment and begin to prepare for the major battle that will cost ma
ny of the brave men their lives. The armies will meet in the clearing, each mar
ching out from the cool covering of the woods, the dark, shady comfort of the tr
ees, into the blazing sun, bayonets at the ready, muzzle-loaders hoisted.
My mind always says. "Don't go!" Stay in the shade. Turn around. Hunker down.
Maybe the enemy will go away.
They don't listen to me.
The men line up in formation, shoulder-to-shoulder, and await the command to mov
e. It comes. They look into each other's eyes one last time and then focus on t
he eyes of the enemy, coming out of cover and heading for the clearing. And the
y move straight toward the enemy, aware that at some point they will be in hand-
to-hand combat and one army will declare the clearing held.
Shots ring out. Men fall on the left and on the right and the fortunate ones ma
rch on, stepping over and around the bodies of the fallen. Soon, the closeness
of the armies makes the long rifles useless to fire and the enemy begins to stab
and thrust with bayonets. Before the battle is over, men are downing each othe
r one-on-one with knives pulled from their belts. And many fall and die, wonder
ing as they hit the dusty field whether they have done enough to protect their l
oved ones.
In the end, one army stands, depleted and exhausted, but victorious, despite the
huge losses inflicted on them. Great sorrow is experienced in a determination f
or victory.
I don't like battle. I like the clear-blue skies unencumbered by the dark and e
merging clouds that creep from the horizon and blunt the sun. I don't want to b
e close enough to look into the eyes of the enemy; maybe that's why he so often
creeps up behind me.
What if our lonely marches toward the seemingly never-ending walls of defiance t
hat threaten to annihilate us in the middle of the clearing are not really lonel
y marches at all?
Imagine . . . and know.
The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you n
or forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. -- Deuteronomy 31:8.
The Lord Himself? Before us and with us? He never leaves? And yet, he knows we
become afraid and are sometimes discouraged. That sometimes our days and our n
ights are so mixed up that we are in a constant swamp of greyness. That sometim
es we want to cast aside our armor and just dig a hole and hide. He never leave
s.
Sometimes God comes to us and meets our outstretched hands in moments of explora
tion as we seek to discover our place in the world. And he speaks in a quiet st
ill voice. At other times, He stands before us and all around us in full battle
gear as we gasp for our survival. And he goes through the rage with us as the
enemy strikes and we risk stumbling to our faces flat in the field. He never le
aves.
God is never confused about night and day. Evil and good. Truth and deceit. N
o clever costuming by the enemy can fool God. He knows the serpent's voice and
is immune to its cleverness.
We could learn a lot from God. Duhh.
Like standing with each other so we could take the clearing instead of retreatin
g to the woods. I'm sure some of those soldiers were more combat-ready and bett
er-trained than the others, but they all marched in. Some were probably already
pretty wounded from earlier battles. Some may not have slept the night before,
robbed of rest by apprehension. Some may not have even liked the man on his le
ft or right. Some may have been saints; others bound by sin. Yet, there they w
ere, there for each other. Judgement could wait. Condemnation was on hold. Th
ey were too busy pointing bayonets in unison at the enemy to point fingers at ea
ch other. They were more determined to be a mighty army themselves than to shoot
the wounded among them.
The church could learn a lot from them. And from God.
The army marches forward to victory because the weaknesses of each are overwhelm
ed by the combined strength of all. Even though the battlefield will sometimes
melt down into chaos and confusion, the clarity of the mission remains.
Whether we are in the nursery wanting nurturing or in the clearing wanting a co-
clobberer to enable our courage, we need to move forward.
We need a clarity of mission. We need to know where we want to be so we can mak
e provision to get there, whether we limp across or leap across or get carried a
cross.
We need to realize we don't live in a barn. I remember when I was a kid, my mot
her would sometimes peek into my room and tell me to get it cleaned up. "You do
n't live in a barn," she would say. I've thought about that in other ways. We
talk so much about God opening doors, or we pull out the old saying that "when o
ne door closes, He always opens a window." And these things are true. But, sho
uldn't we be closing a few doors in the meantime? Saying no to old habits and b
ad thinking? Eliminating destructive relationships that the enemy uses in our l
ives.
We need to be stronger for others. Those of us who struggle need to make darn s
ure that we are not enabling other strugglers. It is neither kind nor compassion
ate to play games along the edge of a cliff, to expose ourselves to temptations,
to trim the hedges low enough to jump over, to put open spots in the boundaries
, to keep relationships intact when we know we are headed for a fall. And I see
that, all the time. People rarely fall alone. If you are a co-enabler, you're
in co-denial.
We need to be ready to cross the bridge. One of my mother's -- and perhaps ever
y harried mother's -- favorite sayings was "We'll cross that bridge when we get
to it." I often told my own kids "We'll jump off that bridge when we get to it.
" "When we get to it," is the dangerous part of the phrase. The men at Gettysbu
rg knew the clearing was ahead. They paused, planned, tried to rest, shared a m
eal, strengthened themselves as best they could, cleaned their armor, organized
and pledged to cross the clearing . . . all before they came to it. And they kn
ew well in advance when they would "get to it."
When I was a little boy, the directions for crossing a street were to look both
ways twice and then cross. It was less scary if a crossing guard was there, but
it was nice to know that if the guard was not present, I knew what to do. As I
got a little older, I found myself crossing in the middle of the block so I wou
ldn't have to wait on that crossing guard. And, on occasion, even if I did look
both ways, and even if it wasn't exactly clear, I would dart out into the stree
t and dodge a car or two and leap to the opposite curb. I had decided that the
instructions were too much trouble and the crossing guard way too slow. It is "
my" life, after all. I can do with it what I want.
Then Jesus said to His disciples, "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must de
ny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his
life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. For what
will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what
will a man give in exchange for his soul?" -- Matthew 16:24-26
My life? Mine? Not so much.
We can learn a lot from Jesus.
My brothers, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring
him back, remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will
save him from death and cover over a multitude of sins. -- James 5:19-20
This was written to Christians with the full awareness that they were surrounded
by people who might wander away from the truth and into the darkened room of de
ceit, an often-fatal error. We should be saying: "Not on my watch."
No matter how dark the room, He will not leave us in it. We may refuse to walk
into the clearing with Him, but it will be our decision, not His. He is the lig
ht that shines in the darkness. He bridges the distance between night and day.
God Bless,
Thom -- http://thom-signsofastruggle.blogspot.com/