EMBRACING THE EVENING, by Zirkie Smit

“It is a common experience that a problem difficult at night is resolved in the morning after the committee of sleep has worked on it” ~ John Steinbeck

When God created at the beginning of creation, He looked at what He created and said that it was good.

What followed was the manifestation in the earth of what He created in the Spirit first. But somewhere between what He created first in the Spirit and what followed and became manifested in the earth, was what the word says: “it was evening (night/darkness) and it was morning (day/light).

What was created in the Spirit, needed an evening to make it visible the next day.

When the Spirit drew my attention to this, I started wondering about what happened in the evening, or when it was night. Why did there have to be a night in between?

As part of my training for my current occupation, I started reading a book called “Why we sleep” by Matthew Walker

This is quite fascinating, and I know God gave us the natural so we can understand the Spirit as it says in the word.

Opposition to truth cannot be excused on the basis of ignorance, because from the creation of the world, the invisible qualities of God’s nature have been made visible, such as his eternal power and transcendence. He has made his wonderful attributes easily perceived, for seeing the visible makes us understand the invisible. So then, this leaves everyone without excuse. (Rom 1:20 TPT)

In the book I saw the physical importance of sleep and a good night’s rest. If sleep is so important as something natural God created, how much more would “sleep/night/evening/darkness” have an impact in the Spirit?

This is an extract from the book:

“Sleep helps to solidify new memories.
Memories move during the night from short term to long term.
NREM sleep moves memories – thereby helping to make them future-proof.
You wake up both with yesterday’s memories safely filed away and having regained your short-term storage capacity for new learning throughout the following day.

Sleep is constantly modifying the information architecture of the brain at night.
Not only does sleep maintain those memories you have successfully learned before bed, but it will even salvage those that appeared to have been lost soon after learning.
In other words, following a night of sleep you regain access to memories that you could not retrieve before sleep. Like a computer hard drive where some files have become corrupted and inaccessible, sleep offers a recovery service at night.

Sleep is far more intelligent than we had once imagined.
Sleep does not offer a general, nonspecific preservation of all the information you learn during the day. Instead, sleep is able to offer a far more discerning hand in memory improvement.

Sleep is an active brain state, one in which we might review and even strengthen those things we have previously learned.


The author did an experiment where he took right-handed individuals and made them learn to type a number sequence on a keyboard with their left hands, as quickly and accurately as possible. They practised this sequence over and over for 12 minutes, taking short breaks throughout. They all improved in performance across the training session; practice, after all, is supposed to make perfect.
The participants were tested 12 hours later. Half of the participants had learned the sequence in the morning and were tested later that evening after remaining awake across the day. The other half of the subjects learned the sequence in the evening, and they retested them the next morning after a similar twelve-hour delay, but one that contained a full eight-hour night of sleep.
Those who remained awake across the day showed no evidence of a significant improvement in performance. However, those who were tested after the very same time delay of twelve hours, but that spanned a night of sleep, showed a striking 20% jump in performance speed and a near 35% improvement in accuracy.

So, the saying “practise makes perfect is not 100% accurate.

“Practice with sleep, makes perfect”
Is it (1) time; (2) time awake; or (3) time asleep that incubated skilled memory perfection?

We sleep in cycles of 90 min Non-Rem (NREM) sleep, followed by REM sleep.

REM (Strengthens neural connections – dream state) – late in sleep cycle.

Non-REM (removes unnecessary connections) – early in sleep cycle

Light (Non-REM)

Deep (Non-REM)

The Thalamus blocks transfer of all sensory info from reaching the Cortex and so we sleep without acting out the movements we make when dreaming – this is so the Cortex can relax and go into default mode (deep non-REM)

Deep Non-REM provides mental and physical benefits of which one is to save memories.

Non-REM:

• Consolidation of long-term memory
• Brain shrinks to allow the glymphatic system to clean the brain
• Helps with stabilizing glucose levels
• Integration of memory
• Preparation for learning new information
• Deep sleep is necessary for the release of growth hormones and has a significant impact on the endocrine system

REM: (Rapid eye movement)

• Dream state
• Associated with filtering and integration of information for emotional well being
• We need to spend 20-25% in REM of an 8-hour sleep cycle
• REM is more important than non-REM
• It occurs early morning – setting an early alarm can deprive you of REM sleep
• During REM sleep, the brain shuts off Nor Adrenalin (Adrenalin in the body is the sister of Nor Adrenalin in the brain) REM is the optimal time for emotional memories to come online so you can process them in a safe chemical environment”

End of Quote

Night/evening or darkness seems to me, to be process we go through. Unless we learn to love process, we will never come to our purpose for being here on earth.

We are firstly a spirit, living in a body and we have a soul. All three components of us need to function in proper order for us to be able to be fully functional. So many people do not understand the importance of a proper night’s sleep and how important it is not only to your physical health, but also your mental health.

As in the natural, we must go through all the sleep cycles for our brains to work optimally, we in the spirit also have to go through the “evening” cycles to be able to spiritually perform optimally. The night/evening creates a void that can be filled by God’s Spirit for us to continually grow. Just as your brain, during sleep moves short term memory to a different place in the brain to create space (void) where the next day’s information can be stored temporarily, only to be moved again during the night. The same way as your brain works, process (night/evening), moves things and the way you process those things, within your being so that you can progress in the Spirit so that Christ can be formed within you.

It seems to me that when the word comes to you it starts creating something within you (as there is nothing new under the sun, and God did EVERYTHING He will ever do in the creation of all things – and therefor with the creation comes the evening of it being established. That evening is vital to the purpose of that thing which is being formed or created within you.

The night creates the substance of the vision for if you can see it, you will have it and walk in it. The night is progressive. It was night and it was morning (then the name of thát created day follows [the 1st day])

Continuation is ensured. Once there was a night/evening the temporary becomes permanent, and the seed takes root.

What was spoken, is created during the night and manifests in the morning.
The next thing can’t come before there wasn’t a night to establish it.

The word teaches us to not let the sun set over an argument why? What will the night do to it?

Ephesians 4:26

When angry, do not sin; do not ever let your wrath (your exasperation, your fury or indignation) last until the sun goes down.

Maybe that mindset you formed by being angry, will take root during the night and become such a problem for you going forward in life.


God created good and evil (darkness) was formed

And then I’ll enter the darkness. I’ll break the yoke from their necks, Cut them loose from the harness. No more slave labour to foreigners! They’ll serve their God and the David-King I’ll establish for them.
Jeremiah 30:8-9 MSG

Mark 15:33

And when the sixth hour (about midday) had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour (about three o’clock).

Gen 1:2

The earth was without form and an empty waste, and darkness was upon the face of the very great deep. The Spirit of God was moving (hovering, brooding) over the face of the waters.

Gen 1:5

And God called the light day, and the darkness He called night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day.

Darkness covered the earth (02822)
• secret place

Gen 1:5 evening: (06148)
• to pledge, exchange, mortgage, engage, occupy, undertake for, give pledges, be or become surety, take on pledge, give in pledge

Night:
• staircase, winding stair, shaft or enclosed space with steps or ladder (03883)

Isa 45:7
I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

When God wants to establish something in our lives, we have to go through that time called evening/night/darkness. It seems to me like this is a secret place God created for His purpose in our lives.

This is the place where we overcome, and this overcoming becomes a testimony that carries with it a transformative power.

Ps 55:17 (TPT)

Every evening I will explain my need to Him. Every morning I will move my soul towards him. Every waking hour I will worship only Him, and He will hear and respond to my cry.

Ps 23:4 (TPT)

Even when your path takes me through the valley of deepest darkness, fear will never conquer me, for you already have! Your authority is my strength and my peace. The comfort of your love takes away my fear. I’ll never be lonely, for you are near.

So let us embrace that time called evening in our lives when it happens. For we have seen in the creation of all things, morning always follows the evening, but the order is that the evening comes first.

It was evening and it was morning, a new day….

Zirkie Smit

Email: zirkie.smit@gmail.com