I meet You in the watches of the night. As the world surrounding me sleeps and the night lays itself out like a blanket of darkness, You stir me. I hear You in the watches of the night. You speak. You stir me. You move my heart to new depths of faith and belief in Who You are.
I cannot tell you how many times my faith has been stirred in the night. It seems as if sometimes God uses the quietness of night to peel off the residue of the world from my spirit, so I can receive a new injection of the Truth.
I cannot tell you how many nights I find myself wrapped in visions from God. He speaks to me. I hear because all life is quiet. He loves to speak to me in the space between sleep and wake. The times when you can comprehend but aren’t aware enough to argue. Those seem to be great times for Him to download His goodness into me. Times when I am not aware enough to hide from His blessing. When I am too tired to debate my worthiness. That is often the space He chooses to tell me the wonderful things.
I meet Him in the watches of the night.
Do you?
When you lie in bed tossing and turning, have you learned yet to begin asking if He has woken you? Have you learned to quiet yourself instead of being frustrated that sleep escapes you? It may not really be that you are restless, it may be that He is stirring you. He likes to speak to us in the quiet moments.
I believe that we often miss Him because we don’t yet know to ask if He is present in a moment.
He is the hand that stirs us. He is the voice we long to hear yet ignore in its inconvenience. His is the hand we brush off because the timing is not what we thought it should be. He is the one who interrupts our day to bring our focus back where it should be, yet we give Him an irritated glance because we want to continue to move through life at our own speed.
He is the One unafraid to inconvenience us.
I challenge you, next time you feel your day getting interrupted, stop for a moment and ask, “God, are You the one stopping me? Are You trying to get my attention?” I bet He is most of the time. There is always a lesson to learn. Will you learn it?
In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps. Proverbs 16:9
“But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Be on guard! Be alert! You do not know when that time will come. It’s like a man going away; He leaves his house and puts his servants in charge, each with their assigned task, and tells the one at the door to keep watch. “Therefore keep watch because you do not know when the owner of the house will come back- whether in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or at dawn. If He comes suddenly, do not let Him find you sleeping. What I say to you, I say to everyone: ‘Watch!’” Mark 13:32-37
365 Days in the Presence 