Singing In The Night Time
61
Just recently, we were visiting our daughter's home. The weather was warm so that windows were open. The two nights we were there, I was awakened by the singing and chirping of a choir of birds. Thinking it must be early morning, I opened my eyes but it still was dark with no sign of any daylight. Looking at the clock, it was 3:15 a.m. "What is wrong with those birds?" was my immediate reaction. "It is not even close to morning."
As I thought about this (once getting past the fact that they interrupted our sleep), the Lord began to use this incident to apply a lesson from nature.
We know that night time is a time when it is dark and is the time we sleep in order to provide rest for our bodies. Night can also represent those "dark times" that come to our lives. When it comes to those really hard, dark times it is not a time when it is easy to be cheerful or even have a song we can sing as those birds were doing. Singing may be the last thing we feel that we can do.
Job 35:10 speaks of God Who gives songs in the night. During those night seasons those songs don't come as a result of our own efforts. "The LORD is my strength and my song (Exodus 15:2 and Psalm 118:4). The song comes as a result of the relationship we have with a God Who promises to be with us always and walks with us in every circumstance of our lives. The Psalmist confidently called upon the Lord during those dark times. With confidence he said, "The Lord will send His faithful love by day, His song will be with me in the night - a prayer to the Lord God of my life." (Psalm 42:8 HCSB) That song in the night was God's song which began to stir within.
Paul and Silas are another example of God's song arising within them. They were sitting in a dark, dingy jail. They were innocent of any wrong-doing but rather were under persecution becuase of their faith in Christ. They were not focusing on being wrongly accused, their present circumstances or what may happen to them as some would expect. It was at midnight (Acts 16:25) and they were singing hymns and praying. The verse goes on to say the other prisoners were listening. Christ caused their spirits to arise above all the suffering. It was God's sustaining grace and His song arising within them that could cause them to break forth in song even at a time when all logic would say is not a time to sing. "As the other prisoners were most likely astonished that anyone would sing when lying bound in a dungeon, what a testimony of how external circumstances cannot destroy what Christ brings to us within. "To you, my strength, I sing praises, because God is my stronghold - my faithful God." (Psalm 59:17)
