By day the LORD directs his love, at night his song is with me — a prayer to the God of my life. – Psalm 42:8

Today’s Scripture Reading (August 30, 2013): Psalm 42

One of my memories of childhood is a late night discussion I had with my dad. I was upset. Nothing seemed to be going the way that I thought they should go. And in the night I just could not see the way out. Everything seemed to be hopeless. The advice from Dad on that night was that such decisions needed to be made in the light of day, because during the night, everything can seem hopeless. Tomorrow, things would probably look quite different. And he was right, in the light of the morning nothing seemed as hopeless as they did the night before.

One of the major recurring themes of the Bible is that life exists with rhythms all its own. It is the one aspect of the biblical literature that surprisingly some people seem to want to downplay. For a group of Christians, life seems to be intended to be a mountain top experience, and if that is not what you are experiencing, then you must be doing something wrong (often phrased as ‘there must be sin in your life.’) If you are depending on God, then God, your heavenly Father, wants to give to you all of the riches of his kingdom. Admittedly it is an appealing message. But it is a false one. Life has its own rhythms. And whether you are following God or not, you will have both good times – and bad.

It is something that even the people in the midst of the Biblical story failed to see. Some of their negative experiences were because of their sin, but as the story of Job explains, sometimes bad stuff just happens. And in the middle of the bad, what really matters is what it is that you do even in a negative situation.

The psalmist reminds us that God’s intention is simply to love us. And during the light of the day, we get that. When things are going right, when we feel that our needs are being met, when we are healthy and our energy is high, we understand that we are loved. We feel his love. But that is only part of life. The other side of the story is the night. And during the night the light disappears. We no longer see things as clearly as we do during the light of day. When night comes, things are not going right. Our health is not where we want it to be and our energy is low. But the Psalmist holds that even in the night, when I cannot see anything, God’s song is with me. And in the night, the song I can clearly hear.

The ebb and flow of life is normal. Night follows day just as day follows night. But when the night comes, we can listen and sing the song that God has placed in us. Because when I cannot see, I can still hear.    

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Psalm 44

Note: The VantagePoint Community Church (Edmonton) message "Hair Restoration" from the message series "An Epic Summer" is now available on the VantagePoint Website. Craig Traynor is the speaker. You can find it here.