The Morning

How hard it is to get out of bed when it's still dark outside. I remember the summer mornings, when the sun was shining so early in the day, and it was actually harder to stay in bed then it was to get up. The sun beckoned me forth.

But now, the days have grown shorter, and it is still the dark of night when the alarm sounds, and everything in my body seems to say that it isn't right to be climbing out of bed at such an hour.

I get to thinking some mornings about how the Light shines in the darkness, how the darkness has not understood it, and I realize how much harder it is to follow Christ in the dark nights of life--when the right thing to do isn't the easy thing to do, when everyone else seems to be following another path that we know not to be the right one. Everything in my body seems to cry out 'stay in bed--stay comfortable!' Yet Christ calls us to the narrow way, where the going is not easy but the destination is richer than we can even imagine.

May we remind one another that, even in the depth of night, following Christ is worth every struggle and demand. As Paul says at the end of 1 Corinthians 12: But strive for the grater gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way.