Coming home & spending the evening – 8 July 2010

For my Christening, I was given a book of children’s prayers.  Throughout my childhood, I used to read it.  The chapter that I looked at the most was called ‘Coming Home and Spending the Evening’.  I enjoyed the cosy fireside images, and was challenged by the prayers for the homeless.  Today, with a busy working life, I find it harder to have a clear chapter of my day called “evening”.  I find that often the afternoon melts into being the evening, and suddenly we are at the end of the day. So I try and make a point of stopping work at a sensible hour and spending some time with my wife, and it usually does happen.

In the story of Adam and Eve (Genesis 3:8), God walked in the Garden of Eden in the evening.  On a beautiful summers’ evening it is easy to see why he would want to.  The day is done, and the heat of the day has been turned down so that we can walk about in the warmth and not be roasted as we take our evening leisure.  In the same way that God looked for Adam and Eve in the evening, evening is a time for us to catch up with our neighbours and families too.  God wants us to do that.  We were created to be in relationship with God and other people.  Evening is a time when we do that with our families and friends.

Sometimes our jobs dictate that we work some evenings or that we work a part of the evening.  However, we still need to make sure that we don’t work from morning until night.  Evenings were invented for a reason.  Make sure that you come home and spend the evening.