Home » "Blessed by Assurance": I'm Glad to be Living in the Eighth Day!

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How many days did it take God to make the world? Seven? Nope, Six! God rested on the seventh. On the eighth day, the world began. The journey of time and the whole of creation was set into motion. God left signs of his presence for the living to see. The twinkling stars, now known to be millions of light years away, told us how vast his universe is! The changing seasons, especially fall, when falling leaves burst into colors whose beauty reminds us of the splendor and majesty of creation, of how its community of elements, light, the tilting of the earth, the lowering temperatures, the plants and trees themselves feel and respond to God's presence, and are changed by his mere touch. And in the spring, the world is reborn.

We can not feel the earth turning or tilting, or feel it racing through space around the sun. Yet we witness what these imperceptible movements bring forth. Many question that God is the source, offering explains of science, or simply marveling at the end--without remembering the beginning! But across the world, in different places with different languages, often with different beliefs, God is given praise and thanksgiving for the presence of beauty, and the presence of change and renewal in our lives.

As I write this, I can hear the church bells of the city chiming the morning hour. That hour is just a small part of this journey in time that began on the Eigth Day. This gift of creation and within it, the passing of life itself, is a journey of living and seeing in the busy-ness of life the stones in the river that mark the crossing to safe harbor through life's storms.

I think of the lyrics of a South Carolina piedmont spiritual, sung by a cappella choirs: "mother gone, father gone, I'm pressing on . . . I'm pressing on . . . I'm just trying to make it in. No more tears to shed, No more stones to tread, I'm pressing on . . . I'm just trying to make it in." That old spiritual speaks to the weariness and occasional misery that haunts and hangs itself on our journey, but it also speaks to the joy and to the source of our strength for the journey. Even in the hard times, I feel the hand that once calmed the sea. I'm so glad to be living in the "eighth day."

(Also by the author,  "Sweet Hour of Prayer": The Collect is a Daily Prayer, Easy to Learn...)