God is like the bright noonday sun that lights up everything.

Here's Nancy DeMoss Walgamuth.

When we're battling with the darkness, whether in our own heart or in our homes or in our world,

our natural tendency is to settle for artificial light, to settle for what we can come up with,

for ways to light our own darkness.

Merry Christmas. This is the Reviver Hearts podcast with Nancy DeMoss Walgamuth, author of

The First Songs of Christmas. For December 25th, 2025, I'm Dana Gresh. If you've ever had a long, difficult night, you know what a

relief it is to see the dawn finally come? The sunrise changes everything. Maybe that's why

the priest, Zachariah, compared the coming of Christ to the dawn. Nancy will tell us more about that today.

Last Sunday in our Sunday morning worship service, our pastor read a letter from the mayor of our town.

I'm holding the letter in my hand. I asked the pastor if I could have this, and it's on the

letterhead, official letterhead of our town, and I thought it was an astounding

letter. Let me read to you a portion of it. This letter was sent to pastors and religious leaders

throughout our community, and the mayor said, as you are aware, we've had a number of homicides this

year in our city. I've met with a city manager and police chief weekly to discuss strategies

to help curtail this situation, and I believe in my heart one of our best options is prayer.

So he says, I'm asking you and your congregation to join me in a day of prayer this weekend.

With domestic violence at a high, substance abuse increasing,

young people walking the streets with no direction,

homelessness increasing, and a lack of respect for laws and authority,

we need God to intervene in our city.

And I thought, wow, what a great letter. Here's and one, I'm sure that the ACLU will be

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