Bedtime Stories 4: A Restless Night

Scripture Psalm 63- Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Psalter

O God, you are my God, eagerly I seek you; 

   my soul thirsts for you, my flesh faints for you, 

   as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.  

Therefore I have gazed upon you in your holy place, 

   that I might behold your power and your glory. 

For your steadfast love is better than life itself, 

   and my lips shall give you praise. 

So will I bless you as long as I live, 

   and lift up my hands in your name. 

My spirit is content, as with the richest of foods, 

   and my mouth praises you with joyful lips 

when I remember you upon my bed, 

   and meditate on you in the night watches. 

For you have been my helper, 

   and under the shadow of your wings I will rejoice. 

My whole being clings to you; 

   your right hand holds me fast. 

Meditation

I was one of those kids who did not want to go to bed. More specifically, I did not want to go to sleep. Eventually, I figured out the flashlight-under-the-covers trick, and read myself to sleep for years. But until that time…my mother would tuck me in for the night, and I would call out for her the moment she left. I would beg her to stay longer. I would ask for another story. I would ask to have my night-light on, and the door to my bedroom left open. I would ask for a drink of water.

 

The thirst of children at bedtime is legend. Anyone who has ever tucked a child into bed—whether you were a parent, or grandparent, or babysitter—knows, there is inevitably a call for water. The thirst rages. And tonight’s bedtime story has thirst at its heart.

 

The title or superscription in our bibles describes Psalm 63 as taking place in the Judean wilderness. It is not much changed there from the time this psalm was written down, or the time when Jesus wandered there and was tempted a thousand or so years later—it is all rock, and rocky hills and mountains, and mostly dry wadis, with only three to six inches of rain a year. The writer of this psalm knows thirst, mouth-parching, eyeball scratching, bone-rattling, headache-producing thirst.

 

But desert-related thirst is not the only thing this psalm is about. It is about other kinds of thirst, too—it opens with a statement of longing that is physical in its description of something spiritual:

 

O God, you are my God, eagerly I seek you;

   my soul thirsts for you, my flesh faints for you,

   as in a dry and weary land where there is no water. ~Psalm 63:1

 

The psalmist is fainting with longing for God. I think this is not an unusual a situation for us human beings; what’s unusual is knowing that we are longing for God. Many of us go about with this thirst barely aware of it, mistaking it for a need for all kinds of other things like new shoes, or chocolate, or a new car, or… any number of things.

 

But our psalmist is in tune with exactly what he is fainting for, and he describes the lengths he has gone to, to find it. He has gazed upon the Holy One in the holy place, and he vows to bless God for the rest of his life, to lift up God’s holy name.

 

To satisfy his longing for God, the psalmist worships God. And it works. Not only does it work, it brings the desire to worship home, into the most intimate of spaces.

 

My spirit is content, as with the richest of foods,

   and my mouth praises you with joyful lips

when I remember you upon my bed,

   and meditate on you in the night watches. ~Psalm 63:5-6

 

The psalmist sounds as if he were talking about a lover, meditating on the beauty of the beloved in the watches of the night. His sleep has a most welcome interruption, one that results in praise with joyful lips.

 

Years ago, I read an article in the New York Times Magazine about sleep. Following a long discussion of the science of sleep—about which, really, not as much is known as you would think—it talked of the sea-change the world experienced when electric lights were introduced and became common. Prior to that, especially in rural/ agricultural regions, people’s sleep cycles were attuned to natural light, sleeping when it was dark and waking when it was light, year-round.

 

A doctor at the National Institutes of Mental Health devised a study which replicated the light and dark conditions of a long winter night—fourteen hours of darkness and ten of light. He had subjects commit to one month of living in these conditions. After an initial period in which the subjects repaid their “sleep debt”—what we would call catching up—they all fell into the same pattern, what they call divided sleep. They would sleep for four hours, then awaken for two hours of restful quietness, followed by another four hours of sleep. This happens to coincide with the sleep patterns of animals in the wild in the wintertime.

 

This is how people slept prior to the widespread availability of electric light 24 hours a day. What did people do during those hours of wakeful, restful quiet? I imagine babies were conceived. But that time was also used to think through the problems of the day, to make important decisions. That time allowed a connection with dreams that we have largely lost. It also allowed for an experience of wakefulness during the day that is measurably better, with greater clarity than most of us have ever experienced.

 

Such sleep cycles would have been the norm for the psalmist, including that period of wakefulness in the night. The psalmist speaks of remembering God upon his bed, meditating on God during the watches of the night (which may have included keeping watch during time of war). During that period of quiet but wakeful rest, the psalmist opened his heart to God, an experience of that was as satisfying to him as the most delectable meal, offering deep, wondrous contentment.

 

I believe many, if not most of us go around thirsting for God, and longing for the kind of contentment in God’s presence that the psalmist describes here. Could the answer be as simple as worship? Could our thirst for a relationship with God provide us comfort on restless nights? If we cling to God, will we, too, know the peace of God holding us fast?

 

I think of that little girl, not wanting to go to sleep, wanting just a little more time of connection, of stories, of a drink of water. I think I understand now what she was thirsty for.

 

Thanks be to God. Amen.