Germany and its World War I Allies began the practice on April 30, 1916, to conserve energy and daylight. America soon followed suit.
When I was a child, I relished the extra daylight hours Daylight Savings Time provided. I’m sure I didn’t understand it when I was young. All I knew was it delivered more outside playtime for my friends and me. Sometimes, we didn’t come inside until nine in the evening. Days seemed to creep on forever.
But in the fall—although I love the cooler weather and the beautifully colored leaves—I loathed the long hours of darkness it brought with it.
As an adult, the falling back one hour—along with the decreased amount of daylight—often leads me and many others into a gloomy and sometimes depressed mood physicians label the “winter blues”—and in its more severe form, SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder). I find myself out of energy, struggling to make it through the day. My body craves brighter light, so I turn on more lights—electricity bill notwithstanding.
David knew nothing about DST or SAD, but he did know a little about being down in the dumps. “I waited patiently for the Lord to help me, and he turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the pit of despair, out of the mud and the mire. He set my feet on solid ground” (Psalm 40:1-2 NLT).
Practical advice for fighting SAD includes having a well-lit home during the winter months and going outside on warm days to soak up the sunshine. A lightbox or fluorescent lights are also good investments. In more serious cases, physicians can prescribe anti-depressants.
But any or all the above should be combined with letting more of the Son in. We can flood our souls with spiritual exercises just as we flood our homes with artificial light. As we sit by the bright lights, we can read and meditate on God’s Word, journal our thoughts, reflect on how God has met our needs in the past and the present, ask him for opportunities to intervene in others’ lives, and praise him for all the good things in life. And what better time to do this than when we can see God’s beauty so vividly represented in the changes fall brings?
Satan will tempt us to fall back…even under… when what God wants us to do is spring forward.
