On my bed I remember you;
    I think of you through the watches of the night.
Psalm 63:6 (NIV)

In yesterday’s post, I mentioned that I’ve always been a morning person. I also struggle with bouts of insomnia. For me, insomnia is waking up sometime after 1:00 a.m., usually around 3:00 a.m. My mind, even in the twilight between sleep and consciousness, starts to spin and ruminate on tasks that need to be accomplished and items that weigh heavy on my soul. Some mornings I gut it out and lay there quiet until I fall back asleep. Some mornings I get up and move to the couch downstairs where I put a movie or documentary on the television that I know so well I don’t need to pay attention, and I can sometimes get back to sleep. Yet other mornings, I go to my office to start my time of quiet with God early.

Those mornings that I opt to meet with God early, I tend to start by “praying the hours.” It’s an ancient tradition of praying prescribed prayers at various times of the day and night, knowing that you are joining with thousands, even millions, of other followers of Jesus in praying at the same time. I have a set of these “Hours” or “Offices” called The Night Offices by Phyllis Tickle. They are prayers specifically prescribed for the hours between 10:30 p.m. and 7:30 a.m:

The Office of Midnight (prayed between 10:30 p.m. – 1:30 a.m.)
The Office of the Night Watch (prayed between (1:30-4:30 a.m.)
The Office of the Dawn (prayed between (4:30-7:30 a.m.)

It’s usually during the Office of the Night Watch that I find myself, like David, thinking of God “in the watches of the night.”

I’ve always loved that metaphor. It comes from ancient times when walled cities were susceptible to surprise attacks from enemies in the dark of the night. “Watchmen” would be posted on the walls through the night to keep on the lookout for enemies approaching, or any other threat seeking to breach the wall or gates when they were least protected in and hidden in the dark of the night.

The final prayer of the Office of the Night Watch goes like this:

Now guide me waking, O Lord, and guard me sleeping; that awake I may watch with Christ, and asleep, I may rest in peace. Amen.

The word picture is a reminder to me that, spiritually speaking, Jesus always pulls the Nightwatch. I have this mental vision of Jesus standing on the walls in the dark. The Nightwatch is a lonely duty. In ancient times, there were often two assigned to keep each other awake as added protection. Two, alone together on the walls in the stillness of the night. All is quiet. The world is asleep. Nothing to do for hours but watch, and talk, as we wait for the dawn.

I pray the hours. I join Jesus on His Nightwatch. I keep Him company. We talk. He asks how things are going. The Nightwatch is always somehow like a confessional. Somehow, in the darkness and quiet the things that lie heavy on my heart gain clarity and rise to the surface of my consciousness more easily. There are no interruptions in the Nightwatch. Our conversation can be focused on those troubling thoughts, and then the conversation can wander into dreams and desires and hopeful visions.

Some mornings, Jesus sends me back to join Wendy in bed, assuring me He’s got the Watch and telling me to get a few more winks. Other mornings, we greet the new day together with The Office of the Dawn which always quotes from the lyrics of Psalm 130:

My soul waits for the LORD,
more than watchmen for the morning,
more than watchmen for the morning.

The lyrics of today’s chapter, Psalm 63, begin with the proclamation that David is always seeking earnestly for God. It’s a longing of soul. It’s a longing and a thirsting to feel God’s presence, to experience God’s peace and power. In the quiet this morning, I find myself reminded of the spiritual simplicity of Jesus’ teaching: Seek and you’ll find.

Of course, that means I have the will and option to seek and to find whatever I desire. Jesus once spoke to the religious people in His audience asking,

“When you went out to hear John the Baptist, what were you seeking? John came fasting and they called him crazy. I came feasting and they called me a lush, a friend of the riffraff. Opinion polls don’t count for much, do they? The proof of the pudding is in the eating.”

In the quiet this morning I stand with Jesus on the ramparts of my life. We sip coffee together as we look out on the horizon at a pink Iowa sky illuminating the patchwork of harvested fields at sunrise. We’re quiet, thinking about the day ahead.

“Tom?” Jesus asks, his gaze still fixed on the horizon.

I glance his way as he lifts the cup of coffee to His mouth. He drinks slowly. A smile comes to his lips.

“When you came up to join me this morning. What were you seeking?”

Some days He asks me a question, and I know He’s not expecting a quick answer. This is one He means for me to ponder.

If I don’t like what I’m finding in my life, then what is it I am seeking?