Troubles in the night

Psalm 119:145–152 NKJV
145 I cry out with my whole heart; Hear me, O Lord! I will keep Your statutes.
146 I cry out to You; Save me, and I will keep Your testimonies.
147 I rise before the dawning of the morning, And cry for help; I hope in Your word.
148 My eyes are awake through the night watches, That I may meditate on Your word.
149 Hear my voice according to Your lovingkindness; O Lord, revive me according to Your justice.
150 They draw near who follow after wickedness; They are far from Your law.
151 You are near, O Lord, And all Your commandments are truth.
152 Concerning Your testimonies, I have known of old that You have founded them forever.

David is having trouble sleeping!  Is anybody identifying with the shepherd-king?

• 148 My eyes are awake through the night watches
• 147 I rise before the dawning of the morning

Why the troubled heart that keeps the mind too alert for slumber?
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​David says in verse 150, “They draw near who follow after wickedness; They are far from Your law.”

The things that trouble him are drawing closer, and they keep him awake in the night and cause him to give up and get out of bed earlier than planned in the morning.
But David knows what to do!  Do you know what to do?  If not, learn from what he says!
He does three things.

• He prays! 

• He does not just think about what is wrong.
• He does not meditate on his enemies, reviewing their offenses or threats.
• He cries out to God.

            145 I cry out with my whole heart; Hear me, O Lord!

• He affirms his commitment to obey the Word of the Lord and says, “God save me!”

 

• He meditates on Scripture!

         148 My eyes are awake through the night watches, That I may meditate on Your word.

• To meditate means to go over and over it again.
• Here is the benefit of having memorized God´s Word when we were young and learning it was easy.
• But it is never too late to memorize new portions.
  

1. When I started to learn Portuguese, before I had even mastered the conjugations of verbs (Well, I still haven´t MASTERED the conjugations of verbs in Portuguese!), but before I even knew them well enough to purposefully use verbs in different tenses, I chose to begin to memorize some key verses in Portuguese.
2. Because my primary purpose in Brazil was to evangelize, the first verse I memorized was João 3:16 (John 3:16 if you didn´t guess that!)  Was it easy?  No!  Was it valuable?  Absolutely.  It not only helped me in the sharing of the gospel, but it helped my language development because I was using Portuguese in a sentence before I knew how to construct one on my own.  My whole point is you can still memorize verses of Scripture!
3. From there I memorized the main verses of the Roman Road and then went to longer passages, so that now I can tell the basic story of the Bible in Portuguese.  I am not trying to get you to learn Portuguese.  I am trying to convince you that as an adult, and even if you are an older adult, you can still memorize Scripture!

• Having Scripture memorized, hidden in your heart, is a prerequisite for meditation.  You cannot recite it and review it over and over in your mind if you do not know it.
• When you cannot sleep, reviewing Scriptures buried in your mind brings a peace, a calming, a sense of trust and confidence in the Lord that puts a troubled heart to rest and can even bring you back to sleep!

 

• When David does get out of bed,

147 I rise before the dawning of the morning, And cry for help; I hope in Your word.

• He reads the Word.
• He prays some more.

What a great formula for a troublesome night.  David did not promise this will give you more sleep, and neither does God.  I certainly cannot.

I can tell you that doing this helps bring the peace that passes understanding when troubles arrive in the night.

EMAIL BRO. MIKE