SDfAoWOP: Day Two

I did manage to hobble through a whole day of reality yesterday, but the feeling of death barely warmed lingers heavily over my soul and body, so I'm going to cop out again and put up another little Bible Something (that is, a sarcastic devotional for an angry or worn out person). Here is the second day.

Day Two

Genesis 1:3-5

3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

So often the introduction of light into a room seems exactly like the wrong thing. Whenever I huff my way into the dimness of the Parish Hall on a Saturday evening, my hands full of Sunday School paraphernalia, my mind stretched with many Lists of Anxiety, it is not a relief to turn on the lights. The light exposes many surfaces filled with clutter, an array of brown metal chairs and tables, the strange black and white print of a soulful, dewy eyed young girl with her hands arranged archaically near her face, the gaping maw of the closet jumbled with lost coats and shoes and bits of dying paper, the ubiquitous things that fill up every free space in the cosmos, whether a poor dusty yard in Africa or my kitchen counter a world away. How can any of this be good?

But God says the introduction of light into the world is 'good'. He brings the light and he defines it as good. All the clutter in the corners of your soul, the vague disappointments of the day and of life, the unkind word of the judgy mother whose hair flips in that annoying and yet envy inducing way, the myriad small failures that build over the week to seem a mountain by Friday, this is what God casts his lightening gaze over. The Day of his Presence doesn't start out cheerfully pain free. It is refining and fraught as a first light shinning to illumine clutter, sin and underneath everything. The soul reels back in pain and shock and tries to turn it down, make it dimmer. But God is gracious and merciful, abounding in steadfast love. His light is sure and true. Eventually the eye adjusts and a path is cleared towards life. The dust is slowly removed, the big obstacles to trust and love put away. And then rest, to sleep and recover, before he begins again. And he sees, even if you don't, that it is good.