Prayer in the Night – Chapter 2
The first line of the Compline reads, “Keep watch, dear Lord…” and highlights not that we want the Lord to see us, although we do, but the importance of who we are praying to…
For many, there is no “dear Lord.” They have turned away from God or embraced the absence of God. It’s not always because of empirical facts, but because they cannot bring together who they feel God is supposed to be with the realities of sin and suffering in this world.
It’s easier to believe there is no God than to be disappointed with suffering.
But while God doesn’t take away our vulnerability to suffering, he has promised to be with us through it, through the dark hours of the night.
Tish quoted Spufford and wrote, “we don’t ask for a Creator who can explain himself. We ask for a friend in time of grief, a true judge in times of perplexity, a wider hope than we can imagine in a time of despair.”
I love this quote. In our hearts, we can’t understand why the world is the way it is. The Creator cannot explain to us in a way our limited minds can be satisfied why we are no longer living in the Garden of Eden. But it is obviously true that we, and this world, are broken.
And even when life is dark and I’m afraid, he gives me hope.
PS – The book by Tish Harrison Warren, Prayer in the Night, available on Amazon.
