Joy Comes in the Morning...

"For His anger is but for a moment,

His favor is for life;

Weeping may endure for a night,

But joy comes in the morning"

Psalm 30:5 | NKJV

Our perspective and perceptions shapes our emotions and actions.  Our perspective is our mental view of life or situations, it is our seeing the facts, the data, and making sense of them in relation to one another.  Perception is to recognize, discern, envision, or understand what we see.  We use both simultaneously as we look at life.  We see, we observe, we discern what it is, and as we gather these facts, we decide what they mean and how they are related and this is how our mind makes sense of everything.  In this sin cursed world we often have a skewed perspective and our perceptions of reality can often be misleading.  That is why we need a daily renewal of the proper perspective.  And this verse renewed me this morning.  

Joy comes in the morning.  Its fresh, it's new, its a beginning, it can only come after night has been.  Morning is a time of renewing, you wake up, it's a new day, there are new tasks to be done, you are refreshed from sleep and ready to accomplish the day's tasks.  But there was a night, a time when you were tired, worn out, perhaps downcast, discouraged, even tearful.  But joy comes in the morning.  God promises that joy will come, that as sure as the morning comes after night, joy will come after sorrow, after tears and weeping.  

In the beginning of this verse the brevity of the Lord's anger is compared to the enduring of His favor.  I often forget this.  I see my sin and am discouraged and disheartened and unable to move past it at times, I am unable to accept the forgiveness that I have in Christ, and I focus only on the anger of the Lord against my sin.  But this verse reminds me that His anger is brief, unlike us He does not hold onto it, He does not allow it to kindle against His children, He does not dwell on it forever.  In contrast His favor is for a lifetime.  His grace, His mercy, His lovingkindness, His Fatherly love is for a lifetime.  Does He get angry over the sin of His children?  Yes, and it grieves Him, and He will indeed discipline it.  

"For whom the Lord loves He reproves, Even as a father corrects the son in whom he delights." 

Proverbs 3:12 | NASB

"Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline; therefore be zealous and repent." 

Revelation 3:19 | NASB

Yet even in His discipline we are told of His love.  He would not discipline those whom He did not love.  He calls His children to repentance, to renewal of peace, to fruitful living.  Sometimes we get hung up on His anger, hung up on the grief, hung up on the sorrow, hung up on the sadness over our sin.  These have their proper place, and they are necessary and good if and when that grief and sorrow lead to repentance, restoration, and peace.  Mourning and weeping should only last for the night, Joy must come in the morning.  

If you are sorrowful over your sin then repent.  Joy will come in the morning.  God does not stay angry forever, His anger is but for a moment.  And we are reminded that there is something that does last forever.  That is His favor.  His favor is for a lifetime, it will not dry up or become cold.  When we anger God with our sin, His anger is brief, our weeping for it is only for the night, and promised joy will come in the morning.  

I needed that today.  I needed to be reminded that sorrow and weeping have their place, but so does joy.  I needed to be reminded that God does not stay angry at me for my short-comings, for my failures, for my sin against Him, but as a faithful Father He restores me in His favor when I repent.  

Remember that we all need to have our perspective and perceptions renewed day by day.  We must daily die to the old self and its false perspectives and skewed perceptions and renew our minds and hearts with the heavenly perspective and His divine perceptions.  I love the reminder here to not lose heart, don't we find it so easy to lose heart?  I know I do, but though the outer man decays, our inner man can be renewed, and we are reminded to renew our perspective of all that we see and experience from an earthly  and temporal perspective to a heavenly and eternal one!

"Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal"

II Corinthians 4: 16-18 | NASB