Yes, where we learn our beliefs matters. It matters because it impacts how we view those beliefs, but it also matters because it can influence which beliefs we hold onto and which ones we don’t. Do yourself a favor: don’t let your perception of a place, situation, or time color what you believe. I’ve learned some incredibly valuable, good, and true things from difficult circumstances that I shouldn’t have ever had to endure. I’ve learned some unhelpful, bad, and false things from nice places and easy circumstances.

But this is about more than hating to see loose change languishing out there in the street with no real purpose, destined for the bottom of some runoff stream bed or to be buried by a child as “pirate treasure” and never heard from again. It’s not about frustration with “kids these days” and their flippant attitude towards cold, hard cash. Though, those thoughts do cross my mind, that’s not why I pick it up. I pick up the change because it’s evidence, to me, that God sees me. He hears me. He’s always looking out for me.

Now, tell me why? Are your beliefs more sentimental than rational? Do you lean more on emotion than facts? Were you raised to believe what you believe by parents and a community that you respect and trust? Were you indoctrinated or abused? Did you study, think, meditate, and come to a rational conclusion about what you believe? Why do you believe what you believe?

When we experience artificial light all of the time, do we ever wake joyfully to see the sun? No. We don’t. With our aforementioned black-out curtains and artificial light sources, we shun the limitations of day and night, screw up our circadian rhythms, and forget about God, thinking we have become him ourselves (we are, after all, the masters of light and dark).

When I think about this story, I think about my beliefs in general. I wonder where they came from and why I have them. I’m a pretty introspective person by nature of my personality and my upbringing, so I consider things like this a lot. I also grew up in a time where we had space in our lives and schedules to think on such things. Have you considered recently what you believe?

No matter the darkness you’re living in, no matter how long the night, there’s a sunrise just waiting to happen. There’s a day waiting to come again.

Do you believe it?