Prayer in the Night – Part Three: A Taxonomy of Vulnerability – Chapter 6
Chapter 6 begins a third section of the book: “A Taxonomy of Vulnerability.” If you’re like me, I had to look up the meaning of “taxonomy,” which means “the classification of something, especially organisms” or “a system of classification” (thank you, Google!).
Earlier in the book, the author talks about the vulnerability of the night, taking us back into the era before electricity, police protection, and burglary alarms. But even more harmful was the way that our society has concluded that only what we could see and control matter. We make our faith “less enchanted,” trying to make it intellectual. So at night, our minds swirl to figure out everything we didn’t figure out the day before, robbing us of rest, true rest, of minds and hearts.
Tish writes, “We are all helpless when we sleep…every day, whether we like it or not, we must enter into vulnerability in order to sleep…Because sleep is so vulnerable, we sometimes have a hard time embracing it.” (88-89)
But we have to let go, in order to sleep – let go of all those things we can’t control during the day. She quotes James Bryan Smith, “You cannot make yourself sleep. You cannot force yourself to sleep. Sleep is an act of surrender. It is a declaration of trust, admitting that we are not God (who never sleeps), and that is good news…”
Sweet release. Can’t you feel it? Only God and his angels can keep watch over us and protect us. We let go…and we let God…and then, we can wake up refreshed!
PS – Please buy the book by Tish Harrison Warren, Prayer in the Night, and follow along with this blog. I write about what God is showing me through it, but there is so much more I’m sure he wants to show you!
