Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":
It was an innocuous magazine advertisement (the latest TIME) but it said something the advertiser didn’t think of: “Tomorrow Begins Today.” (They were advertising Conoco Phillips gasoline.)
But they unwittingly repeated what the Lord said when He made the week in seven days: “And the evening and the morning were the first [then second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth] day” (Genesis 1:5ff). Always, the evening comes first; then the “day.”
Was this an accident?
We haven’t learned to live happily and healthfully until we learn this.
Roman so-called civilization denies it; you can’t (or you shouldn’t) stay up until midnight in order to welcome the new day; but each new day should be welcomed as another gift of God’s much more abounding grace. We read in one wise author’s writings that when the Lord Jesus was with us in the flesh incarnate, it was with the voice of glad melody Jesus in His youth and in His ministry went out to some solitary place early in the morning (without waking the family), and He would welcome the new day.
What happened was that the heavenly Father (His Father and ours, too) would awaken Him (see Isa. 50:4, 5); not too early, for the Bible also says that the Father “giveth His beloved sleep” (Psalm 127:2). The Father always let Jesus have the rest He needed, and He knows we need adequate rest (children and teens seldom get enough).
But what they need is not late morning sleep unless in some emergency; they need to learn (like Jesus) to welcome the morning light.
The problem is going to bed too late at night. Forgetting that “the evening and the morning” are each “new day,” they follow Roman paganism’s way of living and think the day begins at midnight. Watching a late-late show on TV is a violation of God’s original plan for our daily happiness.
Sometimes we think we need a violent one to watch, just for excitement, also forgetting God’s wisdom, for He says in Psalm 11:5, 6 that if people “love violence” He will give them what they love. (Wow, that’s serious!)
And then the happiest “evening morning” sequence is the holy Sabbath. It begins at sunset, blessed plan of God. It’s when husband and wife kneel together to welcome the holy day in mutual peace. Maybe because they are human and not yet quite ready for perfection, there has been a tiff; thank God for Sabbath “family worship;” both join in praying, and the dear Lord forgives both. And if there are children, they are part of our Sabbath “family circle”—kneeling together before the throne of the heavenly Father. A moment of heaven’s peace in a tumultuous world! It’s healthful; life-giving.
Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.
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