The Song Of The Lord In The Night

The Song of the Lord in the Night.

Reading Psalm 134.

We have from time to time looked at the subject of seasons in the lives of believers and the dealing of our Lord with individuals and nations. There are times when there is a special visitation of God upon the people of a nation, this is just as true for any individual. We do need to realise that God is everywhere at all times, that in these years between the death and resurrection of Jesus and His second coming, that any who call to the Almighty will be heard, and He will respond to their cry. Yet there are times when He is perceived to be present in a way that is over and above that all embracing presence, and is working in a particular and great way.

We also experience times of day and night in our lives, not just as a twenty four hour cycle but also as in seasons. There are times when it is as the dawn of a new day in our lives. There is dew on the ground and the flowers, the dawn chorus as the birds sing their songs of the new day in their readying for hustle and bustle of the coming day. There is the opening of the flowers with their fragrance, there is the fresh fragrance before the stirring of the dust of the day. All is new a ready for simply bursting forth into life, there is the excitement for the day that is spreading out before us.

Then there is the heat and the business of the day. In Psalm 105:39, the psalmist talks bout the manifest presence of God in the pillar of cloud and fire. He talk about the cloud being a covering for the people by the day. A covering of God which protected them, there is a real sense here that it is the manifest presence of God that is our protection. That is something that is neither earned or deserved, but is an expression of His grace. The canopy of His Glory is our protection and the directing in our lives.

The bible talks about the cool of the day, it was at this time we read of God communing with Adam and Woman (Gensis3:8).

The Hebrew day.

1. Starts in the evening, the cool of the day. For Adam this was a time of instruction.

2. Night, when Adam rested, there was time for assimilation.

3. Day, Work until sunset. Jesus talked about doing the works of His Father while it is day, as no-one can work when it is night. John 9:4

For Adam, after the day of discovery, of the ups and down, of the physical and mental exercising, after the frustrations and exhilaration of problems and there solving; there comes the simple enjoyment of cool of the day. Before the creation of Woman, it was possibly at this time of day that Adam realised that he was alone, yes there were plenty of creatures all around him, but somehow he was incomplete. When he was in the presence of the LORD in the cool of the day, there was a growing awareness that he was incomplete. Even though he was in the presence of the Creator, the one who was and is complete, whole and without division and deficiency; yet Adam had this growing awareness, growing longing, growing sense that there was more. So he talks with the LORD in these times in the cool of the day.

Possibly the conversation went a bit like this; ‘You know Lord, I have had such a time in naming the animals, in keeping the garden, seeing the plants grow, with there blossoms, then the fruits. The same joy is found when the animals give birth. There is such a completeness and harmony about them. Even when I meet with you, talk with you, share the joys and frustrations of the day, even about the thoughts and dreams that I have had, I am aware that I am not complete and whole like them and You.” What he was expressing is summed up in the words of God in Genesis 2:18; It is not good that man should dwell alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.”

Notice the in Genesis chapters 1 + 2, God is continually seeing that what He has created is "GOOD". Yet in Genesis 3, we see that what happens is contrary to that, i.e. it was "NOT GOOD".

To be alone and loneliness has its roots in being incomplete, we could quite possibly be in the middle of a vast crowd, we could quite possible be the centre of attention, the most important person to something happening, yet we are alone, incomplete. That is because we have violated something of the image of God within us.