At some point in our lives, most of us have asked this very pointed question, “Did you hear that?” It has often been apoken in quiet panicked whispers in childhood bedrooms, slumber parties, camp bunks and tents, and marital beds. It is usually accompanied by the universal sound of “shush” and followed up with a period of silence where listening goes into high alert to try and detect if there is cause for fear.
For me, it started with alley cats on Detroit’s east side rattling around garbage cans after dark, prompting me to call out to my Dad. If not answered promptly, I was hoofing it down the hall to alert the household that something terrible was an imminent threat. Childhood imagination turned alley cats to mountain lions and trees scraping against the house in the wind was thought to be some monstrous villain climbing the trellis to bring us a dreadful fate. Visions of robes on hooks in the dark turned terry cloth to terror. We can all laugh, but we have all experienced some version of things that have gone bump in the night that has disturbed our slumber and left their mark on our “midnight memory and bedtime behavior.”
Sometimes, these experiences follow us into adulthood and manifest themselves into quirky habits that bring reassurance and help arrest unconscious fear. Some folks have to have a nightlight, while others can’t sleep with their back to the door. My brother could never sleep with an extremity hanging off the bed for fearsome unknown phantom might reach up and take hold. For me, closet doors have to be closed. Silly, right? After spending many nights alone due to Jim’s erratic demanding firehouse schedule, I could fill a journal with all the experiences of after dark scary stuff that robbed me of more than 40 winks. Some things I can look back at and smile, some not.
It reminds me that as we age, our nighttime terror matures as well. What used to be overactive imagination prompted by scary stories and shadows is replaced by the awareness of more realistic threats. Something happens to our rational thinking when the lights go out. A concern that we took to bed at 10 pm matures into full-blown worry and panic after midnight, and sometimes an ache or pain develops into an illness that will surely bring suffering and maybe death, and what will happen to our finances. If I get really sick?” By 3 am we are considering how our loved ones will go on without us. Not everything that frightens is a product of embellished imagination: real sickness, suffering. loss, financial strain, wayward children, memories of abuse and trauma, the state of the world and the violent culture that surrounds us, the end of the world as we know it are legitimate terrors. God, our Father, knew we would face these. I love that the Psalmist addresses this and lists it precisely at the top of the list of the benefits of dwelling with the Most High in His shadow and under His wing. It says clearly, “You will not fear the terror of the night.” This implies God knew there would be terror but that I would have no cause to worry. It tells me that the things that bring fear in the darkness, whether real or imagined, are arrested by the presence and power of the Almighty, Himself. It reminds me I can lay down and take my rest, knowing God is ever watching over me. And should the enemy pay a visit in the dark of night, I am not left alone to face my fears with just the power of positive thinking or behavior modification. I have an actual presence, a defender, the Father sitting at my bedside who sympathizes and understands all the sources of my fears and can bring a peace that, as the scriptures say, “defies logic.”(Philippians 4:6-7)
Over my bed are the words of Psalm 121:4 “The God of Israel never sleeps or slumbers.” God is our night watchman. For this reason alone, I do not have to fear the terror of the night. It doesn’t mean I won’t see shadows of threats. I love to go back and read the account of creation in Genesis, where it says God made two lights, a greater to govern the day and a lesser to govern the night. The Bible proclaims God is light. It reminds me even when things go bump in the night, in Him, there is no darkness at all. 1 John 1:5
Lord, help me to recognize the safety I have in you. Thank you for the security that affords me to rest. Help my fears and my imagination to be arrested by your presence and comfort. Thank you that there is absolutely no terror that comes in the night that you can not bring me through and triumph over.Thank you, Lord, that in this dark world, you have turned the light on.
Come back to the vineyard where next time the 5 o’clock worker takes a look at things that are “Right On Target.”
5oclockworker.com 