Friday, August 10, 2018

Night Waiting

Friday, August 10, 2018
From the depths of despair, O Lord, I call for your help.  Hear my cry, O Lord.  Pay attention to my prayer.  Lord, if you kept a record of our sins, who, O Lord, could ever survive?  But you offer forgiveness, that we might learn to fear you.  I am counting on the Lord; yes, I am counting on him.  I have put my hope in his word.  I long for the Lord more than sentries long for the dawn, yes, more than sentries long for the dawn.  O Israel, hope in the Lord; for with the Lord there is unfailing love.  His redemption overflows.  He himself will redeem Israel from every kind of sin.  Psalm 130:1-8(NLT)
It’s hard to forget the angst of waiting for the dawn when you’re on sentry.  There is always something so unfriendly about the darkness.  It is no wonder Scripture uses darkness as a descriptive for sinful activity; it’s something that has inherent destruction about it, and always leads to no-good.
My unit in Vietnam did not have overwhelming casualties; we were in more secure areas than some.  However, we still had to be on guard.  When my turn came around to pull guard duty through the night it seemed they were the longest nights of the century.  We were posted by twos to the guard stations, and, although we became sleepy, the threat of an enemy sneaking into the camp was more than enough to keep us alert…and on edge!
During one moonless night shift it was so still and dark, even the sound of an ant breathing could disturb the silence.  Suddenly a firefight broke out in the valley below us.  It was truly unnerving to see the flashes of rifles and feel the thunderous concussion of grenades and mortars exploding, and the helicopter gunships above raining-down streaks of machine-gun fire.  In 20 minutes, that seemed three-weeks long, it was over, and you could see and smell the traces of leftover smoke from the explosions, floating, slowly fading to dark and quiet.  The memory of death, altogether dark and quiet; this is the fearful waiting of the night.
The Psalmist was hoping desperately for the dawn.  He compared his waiting to the angst of the military sentries longing for dawn.  But the kind of dawn he was longing to see wasn’t of physical threats of darkness and death; the writer of this Psalm was agonizing through the long night of darkness in the soul of his nation.  This was a spiritual void, a place of godlessness that created an unlit void in the God-shaped place we humans call our hearts.  When we walk in sin, we give power to the darkness to overwhelm and take us prisoner.
But the prophets pointed to the dawn:
Who among you fears the Lord and obeys his servant?  If you are walking in darkness, without a ray of light, trust in the Lord and rely on your God.  Isaiah 50:10(NLT)
For You Today
The most unique departure from the constraints of nature and the physical absence of light, compared to spiritual darkness, is a matter of control.  In the physical realm, humans have no control over when the sun comes up…that’s God’s work. 
But we have the Lord God in which to trust, Who removes our spiritually-blind ways…and the switch of faith is always within reach – and entirely our choice.
You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day. 

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[1] Title Image:  Courtesy of Pixabay.com

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