Like so many, I often watch the clock turn over for an entire night without sleep. It's the terrible sleeplessness that robs you of vitality, and denies you the rest your body and mind need.
You feel something of the despair around you seeping in through the doors and windows, straight into your soul. Unanswered prayers for hurting loved ones, the tragedies of friends, like the brother and sister in Christ who just lost a young son to suicide last Sunday. The Christian people who refuse to reconcile or even acknowledge wrongs that have deeply scarred you. You know they are still believing lies told them, years later, and they have no interest in you or the truth. You feel the pain of rejection by those who should be showing Christian conscience and love. Where is the Holy Spirit? Where is the love?
The terrifying headlines of an imminent financial collapse and food shortages haunt me. Have I prepared enough, is there something more I should do as a wife and mom? What about precious children and grandchildren growing up in a world where reality itself is under assault?
I read a piece today, and it was a tremendous help. We are all used to reading only little blurbs and headlines, unwilling or unable to comprehend a longer piece anymore. It's the effect of social media--too much content coming at readers I assure you, this one is worth reading if you are a Christian. It helped me a great deal today. More than I can express.
Asaph does not permit himself to be captive to his own present experience. He does not accept the terms of what Rosaria Butterfield has called Sola Experientia—the notion that one’s personal instinct and awareness are the final standard and authority for knowledge. Asaph understands that he cannot shape his own narrative arc and that there is a higher court to which he can appeal beyond his own subjectivity. In his despondency, he had only focused on what his retinas were telling him: like the horse with its blinders on, he could only view what was immediately in front of him. Having realized this, he effectively asks himself: “What I am doing? I am going to remove those blinders and take in the ‘whole counsel of God.’” Asaph with determination states, “I will remember the deeds of the Lord” (Ps. 77:11). As the hymn goes: “When darkness veils his lovely face, I rest on his unchanging grace. In every high and stormy gale, my anchor holds within the vale.”
Here is the article. I hope if encourages you also when you can't sleep tonight and the world presses in.
