Visions of the Night

The visions of the night. -- Job 4:13

The day has its visions-visions of earthly objects, the flowers, the trees, the hills and the mountains. The night also has its visions-visions of heavenly objects, the moon, the stars and countless other radiant orbs. Only at night are these celestial bodies visible to us.

Life has like parallels. Life has its day seasons, when the sun shines upon our way, and a gleaming radiance is reflected in everything about us. But life is not all day. It has its night seasons, when the sun ceases to shine on our way and everything about us is draped in curtains of darkness.

We sometimes wonder why it should be so. But let us remember that the night has its treasures as well as the day. If we lived in a world that was all day, we would never see the stars that gem the brow of night. And so in the sky of providence hat overarches our life on earth, there are stars of divine promises the meaning of which would never be revealed to us but for the night seasons of life.

In God's Word there are promises and eternal truths that shine out in their full-orbed glory only on the brow of some night of disappointment, misfortune and sorrow.

What a night Job passed through. And what visions he saw in that night-visions of God in all the majesty of His omnipotence, visions of His goodness and mercy and forgiving grace, visions of heavenly glory that lies beyond the bounds of earth and time.

Job had had a glorious day season, but his night season proved to be no less glorious, and he was no less thankful for what it revealed to him. As thankful as we are for the enrapturing visions of the day, we are not less thankful for the awe-inspiring visions seen in the jeweled canopy of the night skies. Even so we should be just as grateful for the starry tokens of God's love which are revealed to us in the sky of life's night periods, as we are for the sunny brightness of His goodness which fills our lives when it is daytime.

We may welcome more joyfully the brighter hours of life, yet we should learn to receive its darker hours with grateful praise. God often conceals His richest blessings in the night.