The Nights of Our Lives

Today I was listening to a song, and one verse said: “Here I am, Lord, here I am, Lord, I have heard You speak in the night…” And my spirit was moved, and a question arose within me: Why, Lord, do we almost always hear You speak at night? Is it because during the day our hearts are so full of noise that it keeps us from hearing Your sweet voice?

It is at night that we hear God’s voice best, simply because we believe that at night is when we truly need to hear it. Just as the psalmist said: “When I remember You on my bed, when I meditate on You in the watches of the night.” Ps. 63:6

Ah! The nights of our lives… Those nights when we lose hope and everything seems to crumble around us. Those that fill our hearts with terror because of the uncertainty they imprint upon our souls, which have ceased to listen to God’s voice even though He has never ceased speaking to us. “My heart faltered, horror has terrified me; the night I longed for has turned into terror for me.” Isa. 21:4

It is then that we realize how immersed we were in the trivialities of earthly life and how we have gradually forgotten that one day, in a place so far away, God gave us a light that would illuminate us forever, so that we would never have dark and painful nights, but days of radiant sunshine, so that we would never lose sight of the way. Our Star, our Water, our Bread, our Abundant Life, the strong rock to which we can cling in the midst of the storm.

But we allow the night to cover us, because that is how we are: foolish, negligent in caring for what God placed in our hands… in our hearts. Our nights have no reason to exist, for if we sharpen our senses, we will realize that He has never left; if we do not hear Him, it is because we are not paying attention; if we do not see Him, it is because we are not looking; if we do not find Him, it is because we are not seeking Him.

But in the night of our lives we do cry out to Him, and His faithfulness is so great that He is born again in the manger of our hearts. No matter how many times at daybreak we turn away in search of “personal interests,” when we ought to “Proclaim Your mercy in the morning, and Your faithfulness every night” Ps. 92:2. But He knows us and loves us even so.

And the nights will always return; as the years pass, and if we know how to make good use of our time on this earth, they will grow farther apart, especially because we will be better prepared if we remain in Him and maintain communion even when the day is bright and radiant. But we must be prepared, covered with the armor of God, so that the night does not catch us unaware, and with plenty of oil in our lamps so that we do not lose our way (Song 3:8)

Even in the night, the star that shone that first Christmas continues to shine; we need only be good observers, and we will see it in all its splendor, shining, as it once did, to lead us to the manger to receive God’s supreme gift.