There is a song we sang as I child, ‘It’s time to rise and shine, and give God the glory, glory. Rise and shine and Give God the glory glory, rise and shine and give God the glory glory, children of the world.”

When my kids were growing up I would greet them in the morning with this song, often at the top of my lungs just to be ornery. There are several verses, so they knew that I would keep singing if they didn’t get up for school.

Somewhere along the way I think that I have forgotten, that we as a church have forgotten, that we are supposed to rise and shine.  Instead we have shrunk back, afraid to let our voices speak out against the evil of this world.  Or when we do speak out, we forget that it is God’s love that shines through us into the darkness.  Instead we try to reason and debate to get people to see our side of things.  We fail to realize that when we don’t rise, Satan does.  When we don’t shine, there is only darkness.  It’s time to Rise and Shine.