top of page
Search

Midnight Sunlight

  • Danny Al-Sammak
  • Apr 21, 2020
  • 6 min read

Can you see sunlight at night?


Don’t overthink it. If you look outside your window during the nighttime do you see any sunlight? Any sane person would answer no, right? You can’t see the sun at night so there can’t be any sunlight. Right?


Well no, not exactly. Whether you realize it or not, the sun is always shining even in the dark, it just takes one to recognize it. Stare into the vastness of the night sky and the first thing that will grab your attention is the moon. But what makes the moon shine so bright? Ah, yes of course, the sun. Light from the sun reflects off the moon and into your eyes, allowing you to see the moon. Until you recognize that moonlight is just sunlight, you'll always be stuck in darkness.

Ok cool, now why is it dark at night? What causes us not to directly see the sun? Yea exactly, the earth spins on its axis and when our location on earth is facing away from the sun, we call it nighttime. Notice, it got dark outside because earth turned away from the sun, not because the sun moved away.


God is always there and He is always shining,

even in the darkness.

He is always shining, but we must be able to recognize Him,

even in the darkness.

Even if we turn our backs to Him,

He is always shining.


Now why do we have different phases of the moon, sometimes crescent and other times full? You're probably thinking it depends on the position of the moon in relation to the sun and earth, and you my friend are absolutely correct. The sun is always shining, but when earth stands in the way between the sun and the moon, it blocks the sunlight from reaching the moon. The more earth stands in the way of the sun, the less of the moon we see. The less the earth stands in the way and allows the sun to shine on the moon, the more of the moon, and therefore the sunlight that we can see.


God is always there, willing to shine brightness into our lives. However, we must be sure not to stand in His way and block Him from doing so. The more we step to the side, the more He steps in and illuminates our world. This is not because He can’t force us to step aside, but like the sun, God does not impose Himself into our lives. Similarly to the sun remaining in place, so does God not impose Himself into your life. He is there and wants to be a part of your life, but He loves you enough to give you that choice and leave the decision up to you. Forcing you to love Him is something true love does not impose.

So now that it's dark outside and the earth has blocked sunlight from reaching the moon, what happens? Does the world stop? Would we have even noticed it? No, probably not. So all this talk about sunlight and we must allow it into our lives, it is useless, clearly we’re still alive without it.


But hold up.

Look a little deeper.

Look at yourself.

Look at the people around you.

Look at everything around you.

Notice that without the sun, none of this would be possible.


The sun is the source of our energy, all the energy that we use to operate our world is provided by the sun. The sun transferred its light energy to the plants, and from there that energy traveled all around, powering us all, leading us to where we are now. The sun is the single handed provider of the energy needed to keep us humans alive. So even when we don't directly see the sun, and even when the moon is nowhere to be found, there are still traces, bits and pieces, here and there, of the sun, reminding you of its presence. Without it, none of this would have ever been possible.


See even if we stand in God's way and block Him from entering our lives, even if we don't allow Him in, there will always be traces here and there of His presence. Although He respects our decision to block Him out, He is always calling us back and reminding us of His presence. He reminds us that when we decide to turn back, He is always willing to bring us back home, more than happy to enter our lives. The traces have been there all along, in the people we meet, in the love we share, and in the nature around us. Sadly, all we’ve ever done was ignore them. We’ve turned a blind eye to all the traces of His presence around us. And then what happens? You sit alone in your room, thinking to yourself, “If God is really there why doesn't He show Himself to me? Why doesn't He appear to me right now, send me a text, magically move that chair in front of me?” And then….nothing happens. You sit in your room waiting for the sign and your sister barges in asking you for help and ruining your silence, you check your phone and no text from God, only a missed call from your grandmother, and worst of all, no magic chair movement. Alright, guess we’ll just pack up and forget the whole story, God is nowhere to be found.


All of that and you failed to see that your sister asking you for help was a chance for you to show love and learn about God’s love while doing so, you failed to see the blessing in someone calling to check up on you. With everything that has surrounded you since the day you were born you failed to see all the intricacy, beauty, and creation that is abundant in the vastness of our world. If you ever want to see mountains move you have to CHOOSE to not turn a blind eye to these things, you have to choose to realise these beauties and blessings around you. By making that choice to no longer turn a blind eye, you allow yourself to develop even the slightest bit of faith. And that my friend is such a beautiful thing because even with the faith the size of a tiny little mustard seed, you have the power to move mountains.

Now we’ve reached the end of the night, it's about 6 AM and earth is slowly turning back towards the sun. By 12 PM we’re bathing in the glory of the sun…..or are we? Just because the earth is facing the sun, does that guarantee that today will be a sunny day?


No, in fact it does not guarantee a sunny day.

And for what reason would we not have a sunny day?

Yep, that would be because of clouds getting in the way of our view of the sun.


~“Alright buddy, the analogy breaks here. Even if I turn to God there's still a chance that I won’t see Him and have happy days, wrap it up i'm tired of reading.”~


Ah yes of course, although the earth has turned towards the sun, certain aspects of its environment have prevented it from truly embracing the sun. Even if we decide to turn to God, we are many times paralyzed by our thoughts, our mindset, the ideas in our head that block us from fully giving our lives over to the Lord and allowing Him to take care of it all. We allow these worries, uncertainties, and fears to hover over us and fog up our view. The more we embrace them, the denser these clouds get. No matter how bright the sun may be shining, as long as there are clouds in the way we will never experience the sun’s light to the fullest. All that work we did to step aside and allow Him to take control is inhibited by simple clouds, clouds that are not even solid enough for us to touch.


So I guess turning to God does not mean only turning to Him from the outside, but it means clearing your heart, taking up your cross, and trusting that He will help you carry it along the way, it means recognizing doubts and working to resolve them instead of cancelling faith, it means recognizing the sun whether you explicitly see it or not, it means looking for those traces of the sun in the darkness, it means clearing the fog, it means a beautiful change of heart … it means a happy ending to your story. And the beauty doesn't even end there, because learning to navigate your way through the darkness depending only on moonlight will help you to then teach others to navigate their way through the darkness, so that they too can turn back and experience the sunlight for themselves.


~ Danny Al-Sammak

 
 
 

Comments


© 2023 by The Book Lover. Proudly created with Wix.com

bottom of page