IF IT’S MORNING, WHY IS IT DARK?

The Tension Where Truth Lives | Season One, Episode Seven  

If it’s morning… why is it still dark? Pastor Charles Howse gets up at 4AM every day — pitch black, no evidence the day started. But he gets up anyway. 

Yesterday he saw a young woman post two photos: 500+ pounds in one, 100 pounds lighter in the next. Her caption? “No one says they can see the difference but I can.” 

If you feel like you’re in a new season but nothing looks different yet, this episode is for you. Morning starts before the light arrives. Don’t let the darkness vote on what time it is.

Transcript

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Welcome back to The Tension Where Truth Lives. I'm Pastor Charles Howes, and honestly, I am so glad you decided to spend a few minutes with me today. You know, I want to start with a question that's been on my mind lately. It's a simple question, but it carries a lot of weight. Here it is. If it's morning, why is it still dark? Think about that for a second. It sounds like a contradiction, doesn't it? See, I have this routine, I get up at 4 a.m. every single day, and when I say every day, I mean every day. No excuses, no snooze button. But here's the thing about 4 a.m. When I get up at that hour, it is dark outside. I'm talking pitch black. There is no sunlight, no warm glow on the horizon, absolutely no physical evidence that the day has actually started. It looks like midnight, but despite the darkness, I still get up, I move, I start my day. And the reason I do it isn't because I can see the morning. It's because I know it's morning. There's a huge difference there, right? Before we dive deeper, if this conversation helps you at all, or if you think it might hit home for someone you know, go ahead and share it. Sometimes the right words don't land at the right time for you, but they might land right on time for somebody else. Today is season one, episode seven, and our theme is exactly that question. If it's morning, why is it still dark? I think this is where a lot of people are living right now. Maybe you're one of them. You're in a place where you trust something deeper than what your eyes are telling you. You feel like something has shifted internally, but what you see externally, well, it just doesn't match up yet. It's that weird, uncomfortable gap. You feel different on the inside, you've made some decisions, you've changed your mindset. But your circumstances, they still look exactly the same as they did yesterday. Maybe for you, it's 6 a.m. before the kids wake up and the chaos starts. Or maybe it's 11 p.m. after you've just finished another grueling shift. You feel this new person emerging inside, but the house still looks the same. The bank account might still look the same. The relationship might still feel heavy, and let me tell you, that can really mess with your mind if you're not careful. It's a psychological battle, honestly. We're taught from the time we're kids to trust what we see. We're trained to respond to things we can measure, things we can touch. We're conditioned to believe that if nothing looks different, then nothing has actually changed. But life, real life, doesn't always work that way. Sometimes the clock moves way before the sky changes. Sometimes the reality shifts in the spiritual or the internal realm long before the evidence shows up on your doorstep. Listen to me closely. Sometimes morning starts before the light arrives. That is the tension. That is the space where truth lives. And I think that's the tension so many of us are struggling to navigate right now. You wake up and you just feel like you're in a new season. Something in you is clearer than it used to be. You're not as confused as you were last month. You feel a little bit stronger, a little more resilient. You finally decided on things that you used to struggle with for years. You've said no to things you used to say yes to, but then you look around and you see the same problems and the same pressures. You see the same responsibilities and the same old questions staring you in the face. It's easy to think, wait, did I imagine that shift? Did I really change, or am I just kidding myself? I saw something on social media yesterday that really illustrated this. It was a post from a young lady, I don't know personally, but her story hit me. She posted two photos side by side. In the first one, she was very large, well over 500 pounds. In the second, she had lost about 100 pounds. Now, 100 pounds is a massive achievement, right? That takes incredible work. But her caption was what got me. She wrote, No one says they can see the difference, but I can. Wow. Just think about that. She's done the work, she's lost the weight, but the world hasn't noticed yet. I'm cheering for her so hard because I've been there, not just with weight loss, but in so many other areas of my life. I've been in that place where I knew I was different, but the applause hadn't started yet. This is why it is so critically important that you know the time for yourself. You cannot, I repeat, you cannot let other people's eyes vote on what season you are in. Their vision is limited by what's visible. I want to suggest something to you today that might change your perspective. Maybe the issue isn't that nothing has changed, maybe the issue is just that change doesn't always announce itself the way we expect it to. Think back to my 4 a.m. walk. I can be standing in complete total darkness and still be in a brand new day. The darkness doesn't get a vote on what time it is. The sky doesn't get to decide when the date flips. The clock already decided that. The rotation of the earth already decided that. And I think some of us need to learn how to live like that. We need to stop letting what we see override what we know. We have to stop letting appearance talk us out of the truth. We have to stop letting a little bit of delay convince us that nothing is happening behind the scenes, because a lot is happening. Just like that morning I walk out into, there is a massive difference between what it looks like and what it actually is. If I waited for the sky to agree with the clock before I moved, I would never get anything done. I'd still be in bed at 8 a.m. waiting for the perfect light. So maybe the question for you today isn't why is it still dark? Maybe the real question is, can I trust what I know even when I can't see it? Because if you can do that, if you can trust that internal clock, then you can keep going when nothing looks like it's changing. You can keep building that business or that life when nobody else sees the vision yet. You can keep becoming the person you were meant to be even when your current environment doesn't reflect that person yet. Honestly, that might be the whole point of this season you're in. Some of the most important shifts in life are not first seen, they are first known. It's an internal conviction. It's a soul-level awareness that the page has turned, even if the ink is still drying. The people who learn how to live from what they know, instead of only what they see, are the ones who eventually step into exactly what they were waiting for. They don't wait for permission from the light. So if it's morning and it still looks dark, don't panic. Don't give up. Don't confuse visibility with reality. The clock has already spoken. The day has already changed. The shift has happened. Now it's just a matter of walking it out. It's about taking those steps in the dark because you know the sun is on its way. It's inevitable. The light is just catching up to the reality of the time. I'm going to leave you with that today. I hope it sits with you. I hope it gives you the strength to keep moving even if you're still carrying a flashlight. You're not crazy. You're just early. This is Pastor Charles Howes, and this is The Tension Where Truth Lives. If this message hits you, please follow the show right now. You don't want to miss what's coming up next. Next week, we're going to be talking about how to move when you feel stuck. It's a natural follow-up to today, and you definitely don't want to miss that conversation. It's going to be a good one. You can find us and more resources at the tensionwhere truth lives.org. I'd love to connect with you there. But until next time, please take care of yourself and just as importantly, take care of each other. Keep walking, keep knowing, and don't let the darkness tell you what time it is. The light is coming. I'll talk to you soon.