Have you ever opened your eyes in the morning only to wish that you could close them again? Not because you didn’t get enough sleep, or the day ahead will be busy, but something deeper.
If so, the Apostle Paul gets it. In 2 Corinthians 1:8, he wrote that there was a time when his suffering was so great that he “despaired of life itself.” And Paul isn’t the only biblical figure who felt this way. Elijah the prophet asked God to take his life. Job, Jeremiah, and the author of Ecclesiastes wish aloud that they had never been born.
In a recent article for CT, O. Alan Noble suggests that these stories in Scripture, as well as our own experiences of wanting to hide under the covers, necessitate a question: Why get out of bed only to endure such mental misery?
“Even when it feels like a burden,” he writes, “your life is a gift from God—a gift he created and sustains moment by moment in an infinite act of love. The goodness of this gift does not depend on how we feel or what we experience. But our challenge is to live out that gift each day, even amid our mental suffering.”
On the days when getting out of bed feels like running a marathon, may we remember that our lives remain good gifts from a loving God. And may we know that we are glorifying him by setting our feet on the floor and taking the first step toward a brand new day.
