Up at Night

I love asking good questions. I love questions that provoke the truth, questions which leave the Holy Spirit plenty of room to bring some level of insight. One question came from a pastor friend of mine... "What keeps you up at night?"

What a great question! And I yearn to ask that question to people. That question says so much about what we value, where our broken edges rub raw our tender souls and where lies confront reality with our minds as the battleground. What keeps you up at night?

Then someone asked me that question. And I had a pretty sweet response cooked up, derived from Alan Hirsch's "Faith of Leap." I was going to say "The fact that Christ gave us a mission 2000 years ago and we are far from completing it," or "We are supposed to care for the orphan and widow, and both groups are still yearning."

But none of those things keep me awake at night. I sleep quite comfortably most nights, actually. And so I didn't give my ideal answer... because it wasn't true. That might be what ought to keep me up, what I want to keep me up, but it isn't what keeps me up at night.

What keeps me awake at night are details that are out of my control. I get so worried about how people will respond to stuff that isn't even my responsibility. I get worried that to be known precludes being loved. I worry that my past actions will erase a Godly future. In other words, I stay awake at night because of me.

Psalm 6 gives us a glimpse of David in an "up at night" moment: "I am worn out from my groaning. All night long I flood my bed with weeping and drench my couch with tears. My eyes grow weak with sorrow; they fail because of all my foes."

Psalm 6 is a cry for deliverance from enemies, as well as a cry for forgiveness. It opens with David dealing with his own brokenness, then realizing that there is a very true danger out there (once he gets his "baggage" out of the way).

When I think about it, I want to be up at night. I want a pillow soaked with tears and a heart that yearns for shalom where there only seems to be disorder. What I don't want is to have my heart so burdened with imaginary fears and unchecked anxiety that I can't think about Christ's mission of reconciliation to the world.

What does this mean? As for me, it means that I want my prayer life to be an arena for my absurdities, my guilt and my shame to go toe-to-toe with the cross of Jesus, where they will be handily defeated. From there, God and I can get down to business and talk about a suffering world that needs hope. I don't know, that might keep me up all night.

What keeps you up at night?