Night Psalms
for the restless
From excessive oppression human beings cry out;
they call for help against the power of the mighty.
But none says, 'Where is God my Maker,
who gives songs in the night,
Job 35:9-10
So says Elihu in his third speech indicting Job. Here Elihu is making that case that the reason that some good people seem to suffer injustice and oppression and God doesn't intervene for them is that actually they have cried out, but not cried out to God. I think it's fair to say that this is a somewhat slippery slope argument to "God hasn't rescued you because you didn't cry out correctly/in faith/with enough faith" etc, which is a short hop, skip and jump to the devastating false logic of prosperity gospels. Indeed the whole tenor of the book of Job argues that Elihu's answer here is partial at best, and wrong in Job's case. Though, in counterpoint, I would say that Elihu’s argument brilliantly summarises the difference between grumbling and lament. But that might be another topic for another time.
However for today’s thought, reading this passage recently I was struck by the notion that God 'gives songs in the night'. Throughout the Psalms we see a regular association of the night with troubles and difficulties.
I am exhausted as I groan;
all night long I drench my bed in tears;
my tears saturate the cushion beneath me.
Psalm 6:6
One may experience sorrow during the night,
but joy arrives in the morning.
Psalm 30:5b
It is natural, in its own way. At night we are not bound by the bustle of the day, our hands do not turn to the labour in front of us, we are not in conversation with those around us. Instead, we often find ourselves alone with our thoughts, our anxieties, sorrows, pains. In other times and places, of course, we may imagine soldiers in the night, and the fear of the dark and unknown beyond the light of the camp, the possibility of sudden attack, swift death, and overwhelming destruction. It is not for nothing that Psalm 3:5 reads "I lay down and slept", which is an act of faith that God will watch over you, answered with "I awoke, because the Lord protects me."
What, then, to do in those night hours? I am not a person generally prone to sleeplessness, though since the advent of our child, and then the pandemic, I sleep much worse than before. I'm sure my current coffee consumption isn't an enabler of good sleep, nor that I arise in the night twice a week to take an online class on the other side of the world. So these days I do find myself sometimes awake for no good reason (or plenty of other reasons) in the wee hours, unable to return to slumber's embrace. For myself (I don't hold myself as any good model here, I am just telling you what I've started doing some months ago), I mostly do my best to lie still and pray. To pour out every thought of my heart to God, joys and thanks certainly, but also anguish, dread, fear, anxiety, sorrow, every last dreg of it. Better these words before the throne of grace, than looping through my head in futile self-talk.
By day the LORD decrees his loyal love,
and by night he gives me a song,
a prayer to the living God.
Psalm 42:8
I think the Psalms are given both as prayers/songs to be prayed/sung ipsissimis verbis, and as models. Which is why it's worth noting the structure of most laments has a turning point which shifts to deliverance and praise. Praise for past deliverances, personal or corporate or historical, roots us in the story of a God who does deliver, and grounds our hope in his unchanging character, so that even when he hasn't yet delivered, we are sustained in hope because it’s his character to deliver. In light of this, I'm at work myself to commit a few more psalms to memory, across a few genres. To equip my heart with lament and praise, meditation and instruction, so that in the night I am ready to praise God, my refuge, shield, help, and deliverer.
That man should sing praises in the deepest darkness does not explain suffering, but it negates its poison, and the ability to sing them is for God alone to give. Natural man cannot overcome suffering, but grace blunts the thorn.
- Samuel Terrien
Grace blunts the thorn.