Sleepless Nights

Lately my wife and I haven’t been getting a lot of sleep. Our middle son suffers from seizures and they almost always happen while he’s asleep – either within an hour of falling asleep or an hour or two before he has to get up for school.
It’s a tough thing to try to sleep and listen for him at the same time. I’ve noticed that there are a LOT of noises in a house during the night – from wind blowing branches against the outside wall to the ice maker dumping cubes and filling up with water again.

There are a lot of things that can keep you up at night. You could be worrying about how you’re going to make the next tuition payment for your child’s school. You could be worrying over a failing business. You could be worrying – like me – about your kid’s illness.

I’m not going to tell you not to worry. You shouldn’t – the Bible says that – but I know that you will because I will and do!

But that doesn’t make it right. So let me tell you this: When you are lying awake in the middle of the night, you are not alone. Jesus Christ is there with you!

In Mark 6:45-52 is the story of Jesus sending the disciples into a late night storm that He could easily have prevented. The disciples were straining at the oars most of the night. Then Jesus appeared around 3:00 a.m. and told them to take courage and not be afraid, and the wind died down. The disciples exclaimed, "Truly you are the Son of God." There are some things about Jesus that we just learn better in the middle of the night. His deity is magnified. We notice that He can see us in the dark. He sees us in our storms. Patrick Morley of Man in the Mirror Ministries says, “Yet He is just as likely to leave us in our storms longer than we would like. Why? Because He is sovereignly orchestrating all human events to bring us into right relationship with Him and right relationship with each other. When we cry out to Him, He does rescue us—but usually not in the way for which we had prayed.”

That might help you sleep a little better, knowing that Christ is there with you in the middle of the night and He’s working through whatever you are worrying about and “for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28).