Like the Rising Sun

Transcript

My friend, so good to be here with you again. This is By God's Call — day 72, Like the Rising Sun.

"So may all your enemies perish, O LORD! But your friends be like the sun as he rises in his might." And the land had rest for forty years. Judges 5:31.

This verse closes one of the oldest pieces of poetry in the Bible. Deborah — a woman who served as both judge and prophetess over Israel — composed this song together with Barak, right after Sisera's army was defeated. Twenty years of Canaanite oppression had finally come to an end. And what does the nation do in response? They don't hold the victory quietly. They sing.

Notice the shape of this prayer. First, a request: that the enemies of the LORD would perish. This isn't Deborah's personal vendetta against the men who hurt her people. It is the deepest longing of a heart that loves God — that everything opposed to Him, everything that oppresses, everything that enslaves, would finally give way before His justice. There is something healthy in this prayer. It recognizes that real evil exists in the world, and that this evil will not win forever.

But then comes the second half, and this is where the song becomes too beautiful to rush past: "but your friends be like the sun as he rises in his might." Picture that image. Not a faint glow, hesitant, peeking out from behind a cloud. The sun at full strength, climbing the horizon in complete power. That is how Deborah describes those who love God. Not hidden, not timid, not afraid to shine — but rising with the strength that only comes from standing on the right side of history, on God's side.

And then the final line, so simple it's almost easy to miss: "and the land had rest for forty years." Twenty years of suffering under Jabin and Sisera. And now, forty years of rest. Double. Whenever God grants rest after a trial, He tends to give more than the length of the hardship itself. That isn't a mathematical rule — it is a pattern of God's heart. He does not do things by halves.

And there is something powerful in the very act of singing this victory. Israel didn't just win — they put the victory into song, so it would not be forgotten. Because gratitude that only lives in the mind fades easily. But gratitude that becomes a song, that gets repeated, that gets passed down — that survives. That crosses generations.

So I want to ask you today: what was the last victory God gave you? It might be small in the eyes of the world — provision that arrived at exactly the right moment, a conversation that finally got resolved, an illness that passed, a fear that lost its grip on you. Don't let that victory slip into quiet forgetting. Before you go to sleep tonight, pick that recent victory and thank God for it out loud. Sing it, if you want to — it doesn't need to be in tune. It just needs to be true. Because those who love God rise like the sun. And after the battle comes rest.

I'll see you tomorrow, my friend.