Daylight AND Dark

   I like the sunrise. I like the sense of a new day, and my thoughts often center around the question of what God might have in store for this day that He has given.

   But yesterday, as I was looking through some photos from our trip to Florida a few days back, I realized again that, although I did have some sunrise pictures in that group, the majority of the shots were pre sunrise, taken in the dark, and soft light of the approaching dawn.

   The thought struck me that a lot of the time I look at the sun's rising as a reminder that God is still out there, and what He might have in store for the day ahead.

   But then I thought, He has been there in those dark hours also, and, while the world slumbered and slept, He would not. His will was still being accomplished, whether I even thought about it at all. All around me, in those still and quiet times, there were lives that were being moved along by His Grace and His Will, even if it went unnoticed and unappreciated.

   There was the man preparing to cook for people who might be in dropping in to the restaurant on that morning:

   There were people in cars, going somewhere in the dark, obeying traffic lights on a deserted street.

   There was inventory in a store window, important to the owner of the store, and also to the ones who might come in and buy.

   Somewhere in that town was a person, maybe still asleep, whose plan was to open a store at the appointed time.

   Someone is awake..

   All of the above and more, some awake and some still abed, but all being cared for by a God who loves them and wants them to reciprocate. Their individual lives were in His hands at that moment in the dark stillness and after the sun came up, too, whether or not they acknowledged the fact.

   And I was glad that He was the God of the dark hours as well as the lighted ones, and watching over a silly old man with a camera in a sleepy town.