All Through The Night

Normally when my head hits the pillow, I'm asleep for the night. It's rare that anything - even my often crazy dreams - interrupts my sleep. But early this morning, that's exactly what happened, and I knew the instant I awoke that something was not right.

Thankfully, I can't remember most of the nightmare - a few things still remain in my memory - but suffice to say that I awoke suddenly at about 3:00 am with my heart pounding heavily and a palpable sense of fear surrounding me. Although my eyes opened immediately and, although I could somewhat see my surroundings and I knew I was in my bed, it still felt a little like I was in the dream.

I knew I couldn't just go back to sleep - if I closed my eyes, I would be right back in the middle of it. So I just started quietly singing - with a quivering voice - the first worship song that came to mind. "Jesus, all for Jesus, all I am and have and ever hope to be..." By the time I had sung through the song, I had calmed a little but my heart was still pounding.

I continued singing, songs that focused on the name of Jesus, because I know that just saying His name has a powerful impact in these kind of situations. Once my heart was beating normally again, I began to pray aloud. I claimed the truth that God's Holy Spirit lives within me and was present right there in the room with me, and I thanked God for His strength, sovereignty, power, omniscience, and anything else I could think of. I prayed for protection over friends and family and asked for a covering of peace over me so that I could rest easily until it was time for me to get up. I read Psalm 121 in both English and Russian and sang quietly, "I lift my eyes up...to the mountains, where does my help come from? My help comes from You, Maker of heaven, Creator of the earth..."

Finally, it felt like the darkness and oppression I had experienced in the dream had lifted and I could no longer keep my eyes open, so I prayed for God to watch over my mind and then I rolled over and immediately went back to sleep. I think I had probably been awake for about 40 minutes.

Praise the Lord, I slept peacefully until I got out of bed about 4 hours later! I don't even remember what thoughts went through my mind or if I dreamed anything after that point. But I was very conscious of the sweet, comforting presence of my Lord surrounding me. It was almost as though His arms were literally holding me as I slept.

I believe that what happened in the wee hours of this morning was a spiritual attack of the enemy. I don't know why or what precipitated it - but I could clearly sense a spirit of darkness in the dream and in the moments after I awoke. And I battled it as best I could with the power of prayer, worship and God's Word.

Ephesians 6:11-12 says this: "Put on all the armor that God gives you, so that you will be able to stand up against the devil's evil tricks. For we are not fighting against human beings but against the wicked spiritual forces in this world; the rulers, authorities and cosmic powers of this dark age."

We know that our enemy will attack - but we often don't know when or how. So we must have our armor at the ready. The Spirit of God within me helped me to recognize what was really going on and I am so thankful for all the songs and Scripture I have memorized so that I did not have to think hard about where to begin to combat the darkness that was surrounding me.

Jesus Christ has won the victory over our enemy and through His blood and by the power of the Holy Spirit, we can win every spiritual battle. I hate to have my sleep interrupted, but I am thankful that I woke up when I did and was able to find peace for my spirit again.

My closing thought is a remembrance of a little song my mom used to sing to us at bedtime when we were children - especially when we had trouble sleeping:

Jesus is with me all through the night,

Stays close beside me all through the night;

So I sleep safely till morning light;

Jesus is with me all through the night.

A Glimpse into God's Heart

I'm not a Bible scholar; what I'm about to share is not an exposition of this passage, just some thoughts that God gave me as I read from my Bible this morning. Quite some time ago, I embarked on a new Bible-reading journey. I know certain parts of the Bible quite well, so I didn't want to just read it in a year; I wanted to go deeper and really "glean" the important truths from it.

I wanted my reading of God's Word to become a search for treasures that I could hide in my heart and which would strengthen and encourage me in my relationship with Him. So I decided to start reading through the Bible, only reading one or two chapters at a time, meditating on them and journalling my thoughts and the things that God revealed to me as I did so. I have made many new discoveries and even in the stories most familiar to me, I have learned new things. God's Word is indeed "living and active," and has the power to change willing hearts.

But I have been stuck for the last little while in the book of Isaiah - especially chapters 15 and 16. This morning I read these chapters again, for probably the 4th time, and all of a sudden I saw what it was that God wanted me to understand from this passage!

Chapter 15 is mainly about the desolation that will come to the nation of Moab (judgment from Almighty God, I believe). It follows a chapter describing how God will have mercy on His people and how He deals with them according to His character, and I wondered initially why it was placed here. Verse 5 especially caught my attention when God says - through the prophet Isaiah - "My heart shall cry out for Moab..."

Why would God cry out for Moab? They were a neighboring nation to Israel, but not one that honored the Lord God, and their relations with God's chosen people were not exemplary. So I continued reading ... verse 4 of chapter 16 is interesting: God says, "Let mine outcasts dwell with thee, Moab; be thou a covert to them from the face of the spoiler..." Why would God task Moab with being a refuge for His chosen people?

He goes on to talk about the one who will sit on the throne of David and judge in righteousness, and in verse 6 makes a bold statement about the pride and haughtiness of Moab. In verse 7 God declares that Moab will cry out for itself (which is to be expected - we humans are good at feeling sorry for ourselves), but the statement in verse 9 is what REALLY caught my attention.
"Therefore I will bewail with the weeping of Jazer the vine of Sibmah: I will water thee with my tears, O Heshbon, and Elealeh: for the shouting for thy summer fruits and for thy harvest is fallen."
Verse 10 describes how the gladness is taken away by God's judgment, and then again in verse 11, God says: "Wherefore my bowels shall sound like an harp for Moab, and mine inward parts for Kirharesh."

The prophet Isaiah concludes the chapter by saying that God had spoken this previously about Moab, but now has a new message that soon Moab's glory will be completely gone and the remnant left will be very small and weak. As I meditated on this Scripture, God brought to mind a situation from my past that profoundly reveals the difference between my heart and his - which is what I believe He wanted me to understand in a fresh and new way today.

Although I know it is true, I often forget that love is part of judgment. When I was a child I was disciplined for the things I did wrong and it wasn't pleasant or painless, but I knew that my parents did it because they loved me and they wanted me to develop character. If they only ever punished me for wrongdoing, I would perhaps have viewed it more negatively, but they always affirmed that they were doing it because of their love for me. I also remember as a child sometimes being quite happy when my brothers were punished for their wrongdoing. What an awful attitude to have! I should have been saddened that they made that choice and should not have thought more highly of myself simply because I didn't.

I confess that I sometimes translate that thought process to God's judgment on wickedness: "Yay, they're getting what they deserve!" But from what I read in the Scriptures, that's not what God is like. In 2 Peter 3:9, the apostle Peter writes that "the Lord is not slow in keeping His promise, as some understand slowness. Instead He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but all to come to repentance."

We know as believers and followers of Christ that we are loved in a way that we cannot fully comprehend - but I think we often forget (at least I do) that God loved us WHILE WE WERE STILL SINNERS, just as much as He does now that we have chosen to follow Him. So why do we think that people in the world around us - yes, even the ones who do dreadful things - are any less valuable than we are to the One who created them?

In Isaiah 16 God declares through Isaiah the prophet that He is weeping and mourning over Moab's desolation. He HAD to punish them for their wickedness and the way they treated His chosen people, but I think I see now why this is here. It is to show me that God loves each person equally and would rejoice over the repentance of a wicked nation just as much as He rejoices over me when I choose to do what honours Him. What a compassionate, gracious, loving God!!

And we are commanded to be holy as He is holy. That means we must hate sin - ESPECIALLY our own sin - just as much as God does, but we must also seek to have a heart like His that looks upon people as a precious creation and loves them for their intrinsic worth in God's sight. We should rejoice when they follow God's will for their lives and mourn when they turn away, because we should desire as God does that "no one should perish, but that all should come to repentance."

I got a little glimpse into my heart - and God's - this morning, and it literally brought me to tears. Tears of joy that God loves me - and you - SO much that He would crucify His own son to make it possible for us to have a relationship with Him, but also SO much that He will weep over the punishment that is inevitable when we choose to sin against Him!

How high and how wide, how deep and how long,

how sweet and how strong is Your love!

How lavish Your grace, how faithful Your ways,

how great is Your love, O Lord!