O Lord my God, I cried unto thee, and you healed me...

O Lord my God, I cried unto thee, and you healed me. For God’s anger endures but a moment; in God’s favor is life: weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning. - Psalm 30:2

I think I’ve been hearing the refrain of Psalm 30:5 all my life. I’ve heard it proclaimed with powerful conviction from the pulpit and I’ve heard it beautifully intoned in the melodies of gospel songs and anthems. There is perhaps no other psalm that offers as much faithful and blessed assurance as this one: “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.” I had always understood “morning” to be the daybreak that God sends after the nighttime of our misery and suffering. I believed that joy would surely come when daylight appeared, and we could finally see our way out of the trepidations and tribulations of the night. Then, late one night, I received a call, and when I answered the phone, the caller said to me, “Good morning.” I looked over at the clock and it was 12:07 a.m. It suddenly dawned on me that morning comes to most of us not at daybreak, but at night. And since joy comes in the morning, joy must come when we realize that our new day dawns at night. Joy comes when we understand and believe that desperate times and difficult situations cannot prevent the fulfillment of God’s promise and progress in our lives. Joy comes when we celebrate the fact that even in the night, God is still moving us toward better days. Though my daylight may not yet have appeared, I am now moved to joyfully pronounce to myself and to others: “Good morning!”

Prayer: Dear Lord, even in the darkness of our circumstances, help us to realize that you have already brought us through the debacles and depressions of yesterday and days gone by. Now help us to find joy in knowing that the new day of our salvation has already begun.  Amen