Charles H. Spurgeon on Psalms 30:5

How often have we experienced the literal truth of that verse, Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning! How heavily does any trouble weigh on us at night! Our wearied nerve and brain seem unable to bear up under the pressure. Our pulse throbs, and the fevered restless body refuses to help in the work of endurance. Miserable and helpless we feel; and passionately weep under the force of the unresisted attack. At last sleep comes. Trouble, temptation, whatever it be that strives to overcome us, takes the one step too far which overleaps its mark, and by sheer force drives our poor humanity beyond the present reach of further trial. After such a night of struggle, and the heavy sleep of exhaustion, we awake with a vague sense of trouble. Our thoughts gather, and we wonder over our own violence, as the memory of it returns upon us. What was it that seemed so hopeless —so dark? Why were we so helpless and despairing? Things do not look so now —sad indeed still, but endurable —hard, but no longer impossible —bad enough perhaps, but we despair no more. Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. And so, when life with its struggles and toils and sins, bringing us perpetual conflict, ends at last in the fierce struggle of death, then God "giveth his beloved sleep." They sleep in Jesus, and awake to the joy of a morning which shall know no wane —the morning of joy. The Sun of Righteousness is beaming on them. Light is now on all their ways. And they can only wonder when they recall the despair and darkness, and toil, and violence of their earthly life, and say, as they have often said on earth, "Weeping has endured only for the night, and now it is morning, and joy has come!" And our sorrows, our doubts, our difficulties, our long looks forward, with despair of enduring strength for so long a night of trial —Where are they? Shall we not feel as is so beautifully described in the words of one of our hymns —

"When in our Father's happy land

We meet our own once more,

Then we shall scarcely understand

Why we have wept before." —Mary B. M. Duncan, 1825-1865.