My wife Kristi and my daughter love the movie Annie. I will admit that I enjoyed it when I was younger, just not the extent that those two do. Oh, but Madison, my daughter. She watched it numerous times when she was little and could sing the songs with ease, especially "Tomorrow". The song is about how bad "lonely and gray" a day can be, and how "I stick out my chin and grin and say" (I am singing while writing this, really I am). And it really is a positive song, to keep you upbeat and to put the proper perspective on life, however, as a growing Christian I have a problem with the song that I didn't when I was younger.
We are not guaranteed tomorrow.
James 4:13-17 states: "Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin."
To wait for the sun to come out tomorrow, you are taking for granted that tomorrow will come for you. Instead, we as Christians should look at each moment as a gift. This day, this moment, right now has been given to us by God and it is a gift. During those days that are "lonely and gray" I turn to the scriptures such as James 1:2-4 "Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything." Those lonely and gray days are actually building you up in your faith and producing a stronger faith if you allow it.
But also, 1 Thessalonians 5: 16-18 "Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances." Give thanks in all circumstances. Easy to say, hard to do. Yet, if we believe that God created us in His image and sent His son to die on the cross for us, every day, every moment that we should give thanks for that, not just when times are good or it is convenient for us, or only on Sunday mornings during Communion.
I pray that when you encounter those lonely, gray days that you don't wait for the SUN to come up tomorrow, but that you pray for the SON to help get you through it; I pray for you to do is what Proverbs 24:16 claims "For a righteous man falls seven times and rises again" or as the great theolgian TobyMac sings: "if we lose our way (or get knocked down), we get back up again".
