“I rise before dawn and cry for help;
I have put my hope in your word.” Psalm 119:147 NIV
Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night with your chest tight with worry? You might have even set your worry aside in prayer before you went to bed, only to wake up in the dead of night with the fear-o-meter needle going haywire. Despite your best efforts to calm yourself back to sleep you toss and turn, flip the pillow, and practice deep breathing exercises there is still no sleepy, sleepy only wakey, wakey.
Has this ever happened to you? I get the wakey, wakeys when something is gnawing at me or some big event is looming in the near future. It happened to me just this morning at 3a.m. I have a few too many loose ends on my plate right now and I don’t cope very well with getting all the little details tied up! I woke up fretting that I might miss something important.
In the past, I’ve tried all the practical methods of dealing with the panic or anger which usually keeps me awake. I tried praying, praying out loud, singing, reading, breathing, and journaling. I’ve even tried sleep aids. (Just a side note, but a sleep aid taken at 3am doesn’t seem to take affect until about 20 minutes before your alarm goes off which makes for a very long next day.) Sometimes these things work and sometimes they don’t.
However, I’ve now found the silver bullet which works EVERY time: reading God’s word. It’s the only surefire method I’ve found to deal with the sense of hopelessness 3am attacks often bring. Somehow, someway, God’s designed the LIVING WORD to give you just what you need, just when you need it.
Now when I feel that desperation start to creep over me which tells me my worries have become too heavy, I get up, and open the Bible. I pray and ask God to lead me to the still waters of His love. Then I just start reading.
If the fire in my soul isn’t quenched within ten minutes, I go to and type in what I’m feeling into the search like, “fear”, or “despair”, or “anger”, and then start reading the verses which pop up. In inevitably, just like this morning, the Word come which fill my heart to overflowing and I begin singing praise tunes in my head.
I’m finding sometimes it’s hard to go back to sleep just because I’m so filled with love for my Lord that I just want to stay and hang out with Him longer. I know, I know. It sounds crazy – but, it’s true. God’s Word never fails.
Try it the next time you find yourself crying out at 3am. You just might find you are crying with HOPE.