The Cool of the Day

Something magical happens after midnight, especially at Waffle House.

            During the day it is just a dingy little diner with creepy truck drivers and burnt toast but after midnight it is a whole new experience. I can’t count the amount of good memories I have had late at night at some Waffle House with various groups of people, all laughing and talking about whatever it was that we have just come from and that has kept us out so late. It is not that the food gets any better, the service any nicer, or the bathrooms any cleaner. It is simply the fact that there is something enjoyable about being alive when the world is asleep.

            I’m sure I will grow old one day and appreciate these times less and less but I am 19 now and therefore have a right to enjoy them.

            I have heard people say, though, that nothing good happens after midnight. I don’t completely agree with that but there is definitely some truth to the fact that evenings are usually when we blow it completely.

            Think about it. We can be fine all day until we are tired and come home from a long day and are still asked to do a million things at once. We are exhausted and ticked off at whatever and evening is when it usually boils over to eruption. We just want to get off of our feet and relax and we usually stop at nothing to achieve that goal. Our defenses slacken and suddenly we are watching a movie that we never would have let ourselves watch had it been at any other time of day and we start snapping at people for hardly anything at all. Then the next day we wake up and wonder why it is so hard to have a good quiet time with God.

            Reading through Genesis, something was recently pointed out to me that I had never seen before that has completely changed the way I do my day.

            In the first chapter God has just spoken Light into existence and separated it from Darkness. Then at the end of verse five it says “there was evening, and there was morning- the first day.”

            Did you catch that?

            We usually start our day when our alarm clock buzzes in our ears while the sun begins to peak through our blinds but when God made the first day, He started with the night before. There was evening, and then there was morning. This whole time I have been thinking that evening was my time, since I had given God the rest of my day, and that He wouldn’t mind if I just turned the brain off and relaxed. I used to wonder why I would wake up distracted and my mind going a million places at once thus making it impossible to sit down and talk to God. Now I know it was because I was taking the evenings of my day for myself when that should have been the beginning of my day with God.

            What would our lives look like if instead of coming home from work or school and venting at how terrible our day has been we just sat in the presence of God? What if instead of holding in our frustrations all day until the exploded on our family at home, we gave them all over to God the first chance we got? What if we opened our Bible before going to bed instead plopping down in front of the TV?

            Now it might seem like I am saying we should never take time to rest, but actually I am saying the exact opposite.

            The great Chinese preacher and writer of the early 20^th century Watchmen Nee pointed out in his book, Sit, Walk, Stand, that since God made Adam on the sixth day and rested on the seventh, that Adam’s first day was a day of rest. Adam began his life in rest with God. God worked then rested, Adam rested then worked but their days of rest fell on the same day.

            If God began His days in the evening, and started out humanity with a day of rest, then I think I have been missing out on a lot of what God has been trying to teach me by thinking I could take evenings to do whatever I wanted to do. Evenings are the finish in my mentality and if each day were a race, how many times could I say I finished strong?

            Flip over to chapter three of Genesis and we find that God is walking through the Garden of Eden in the “cool of the day,” looking for His friends. God came to them in the evening wanting to know how their day had been and they hid from Him.

            Taking this literally has transformed my whole outlook on how I plan my day. If I promise God my life than I promise Him my whole day, even when I am exhausted and worn out. I think it’s awesome that the point of my greatest weakness is exactly when God wants to hang out with me.

            Beyond literally, though, God has also been showing me that the way I finish anything directly connects to how much I care about it in the first place. In high school running cross country, I never walked across the finish line because I cared about the race I was running. I wanted to show that this race mattered to me and that the next race will matter too.

            I am coming to an end of my first ten months with Missio Dei and all I want to do is just coast through the end but that isn’t an option. Nothing will have mattered this year if I don’t finish like it mattered. The way I start next year will be affected by how I finish this year.

            Evenings are the transition points. They are the end of one season and the beginning of the next. They are the point when I am exhausted and worn out but need more than ever to push through and seek God. I refuse to limp into the next season of my life. It will be a new day and I am not carrying anything into it that shouldn’t be there even if that means giving it all over to God when I am too tired to care.

            Musician John Reuben said in one of his songs that “good evening is a greeting, goodnight is farewell, ” and that’s the truth. “Good Night” is a closing statement but “Good Evening” recognizes the past but is more excited about the future, which is a place I always want to be.

            So as I close this season of my life I just want to give it all up. God, take all of me. I can give no more and I am exhausted and worn out but that is exactly where You want me. It is here that I realize how powerless I am and how powerful You are. You are the creator of my days and my nights and I know that You will be there tomorrow morning like You are here with me this evening, whatever it looks like. Thank You for a great day, and thank You for the promise of a greater one tomorrow.

            Good Evening.