Your night, and mine, is coming. This thought springs from Jesus’ words in John 9:4, “the night is coming when no one can work.”¹ Jesus knew personally that His time to work was limited. The cross would soon bring an end to His “day.”

God similarly has given to each of us a “day” in which to do the works for which He has sent us back into the world as His sanctified people. Your night—and mine—is coming.

Jesus knew when His night would come. We do not.

For a GFA missionary couple serving in a restricted access nation, their night came via an unexpected knock on the door on April 15, 2024, when many Americans were wrapping up their tax returns. Government officials stood on their doorstep. Do you hold worship services here? That encounter ultimately led to religious visa restrictions that forced them out of the country. They had been there almost twenty years. They thought they had four or five more years. They only had four or five more months.

Others can see their night approaching. GFA has missionary church planters who are wrapping up church plants and are praying about where they will plant their next church. Given their age, these next church plants will likely be their last. Reality check! The sun is setting on their day.

Adverse health can bring in your night. A college professor of mine had committed vast quantities of Scripture to memory and would quote those passages readily. By the next school year, he could barely get those passages out of his mouth. His health had taken a turn for the worse, and by the next year he was with the Lord.

We fritter away time as if we have plenty to spare when we do not. God has given to each of us a “day” in which to work for Him. None of us knows how long or short it will be. Both Robert Murray M’Cheyne’s and David Brainerd’s day ended at 29 years of age, Jim Elliot’s at 28.

Given the fact that your night is coming, what should you do? Jesus exemplifies the answer.

First, Jesus worked, knowing God was at work. As He passed by a man born blind (John 9:1), Jesus perceived a divine set up—a situation where God wanted to reveal something about Himself (v. 3). The seemingly random was the work of God. Are we equally sensitive to what God may be doing?

Second, Jesus worked out of a sense of divine compulsion. “I must work the works of Him who sent me” (v. 4a, emphasis mine). There were some things He had to do. We, as slaves to the mundane, must change the oil in our car. But is there any work you must do for God?

Third, Jesus worked in submission to the one who sent Him. His Father had entrusted to Him a work: “My food is to do the will of Him who sent me, and to finish His work (John 4:34).” Do you live as one under orders? As if God has put you here for such a time as this? After all, you are “His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works” (Ephesians 2:10).

Fourth, Jesus’ work focused on bringing light. “As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world” (v. 5). Motivated by that sense of mission, He healed the blind man. By giving physical light to the blind man, He was declaring to the world that He was its spiritual light. "I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life" (John 8:12).

This same mission of bringing light ought to commandeer how we use the day God has given us. Pioneer missionary C. T. Studd was spot on when he wrote, “Only one life, ‘twill soon be past; only what’s done for Christ will last.”² Steve Jobs similarly understood life’s brevity: “Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life.”³ Both men found life’s brevity motivating, but the similarity ends there. One believed the answer lay in working for Christ; the other, in following your heart. Who will in 100 billion years prove to be right? Even 100 years!

Based on Christ’s example in John 9, I have crafted this motto: “Wherever I am, for as long as I am, I must be the light of my world.”

Your night, and mine, is coming.

 

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