Day and Night or Night and Day?

via GIPHY

Which came first? Night or Day? What does it matter? It’s just a cycle we go through as the earth rotates on its axis.

Physically

From a purely physical standpoint it does not matter. Time rolls on and we enter light and night. It is one of the gifts God gives us to steward in our life. That is a true principle. But with all things, sometimes we can dig deeper to find a spiritual truth. Paul writes in Romans For ever since the creation of the universe, His invisible qualities- both His eternal power and His divine nature- have been clearly seen, because they can be understood from what He has made.” Creation has deeper insight into the unseen things of God. Truths and revelations about God are embedded into the physical creation all around us. (Complete Jewish Bible, CJB)

Bible Study

As with all study, we should start with the World of God. Genesis 1:5 is during creation. It highlights the end of the first day. It reads God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. So there was evening, and there was morning, one day. (CJB). Well it says evening, not night. You can go to other translations and they all have that order for each of the days. But that is just words in the text. The order of the words does not matter.

The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning.

C.S. Lewis The Last Battle

But when we look at how God structured the Jewish day. Their day starts at sundown. The night precedes the day in that structure. Is this how our present life on earth is?

The world tries to tell us that life is not a dress rehearsal, enjoy it. We, especially our children are bombarded with messages filled with live life now. Life is all you have. There is nothing else. You have to enjoy yourself now. There is no call for discipline. Almost like this is your day, soon you will sleep the night when you die. The sun will set on your life one day.

Is that what God shares with us? We all can answer that quickly as “No!” Jesus multiple times warned us to “lay up treasures in heaven” or “this life is not all there is.” This life is important in what we do, but it is but the night, the dream before reality.

In Divine Quest: The Lamb and the Bear that is a driving conflict between two of the main characters. Just as in our culture today, Bjarke’s native culture viewed life as your day. When you died, night set in for you. There was nothing else, unless you died in battle and was picked up by the Valkyries. When he is confronted by someone versed in the teachings of Christ, he must re-examine this view. It is hard. It has been ingrained in him through his culture.

Think about how much harder it is for us or our children to break that view being bombarded every minute of every day with this message. When we have a view of which is really real, we can order our actions appropriately.

This is but one example of how little things make a difference in our worldview and can influence our daily actions.

As always I encourage you to search the scriptures daily and find God and His plan for you.

God bless.

Check out the next thought on this topic here