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By Dean Kelly

My wife was outside with our little five-year-old granddaughter when it was beginning to grow dark outside. The little one looked up at her and said, “The nighttime comes and steals our day!” I don’t know if she heard someone say that, or if maybe it was on a little TV show she might have watched. But I thought it was mighty perceptive coming from the “mouth of a babe.” 

I am sure that in her mind when night falls it means she and her big sister can’t play outside any longer. Also, I know she has been warned that it is not safe for her to be out after dark, that dangers lurk in the dark outside. But the thought is so appropriate in so many ways, and on so many levels.

There are several ways in which nighttime comes and steals the day. 

The darkness of sin snuffs out the light in our hearts. Sin is like an extremely dark cloud that blocks out the sun from our sight. Indeed, sin is a dark cloud that blocks out the Son from our hearts.

In living our lives there are times that the night comes and steals our day. This occurs as things happen in our lives, such as when we lose a loved one, or are suffering sickness, or have other major difficulties in our lives. Those pieces of darkness can steal our day.

And then, as Jesus notes when he says, “I must work the works of Him who sent Me while it is day; the night is coming when no one can work” (John 9:4). Like the day, our life winds down until the night comes. And that night, when it falls, will steal away our day.

John speaks of Jesus as the light in the dark world. “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it” (John 1:4-5). At the cross we can come to that light, and it will never be extinguished. 

Dean Kelly is minister at Highland Home Church of Christ.

 

 

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