“But no one says, ‘Where is God, my Maker, who gives songs in the night.” (Job 35:10).
These were the words of Elihu reminding his troubled friend Job of an aspect of the character of God. God is a songwriter, he said.
The psalmist exhorts us “to sing aloud upon our beds” – and for good reason. After all, the “Lord will command His loving kindness in the daytime, and in the night His song shall be with me” (Ps. 42:8).
But I have observed it is comparatively easy to whistle a tune under a cloudless sky. In fact, I seldom suffer from insomnia when all is well. It is trouble that chases sleep away that “holds my eyes waking.”
When, as the psalmist puts it, “my sore runs in the night, my soul refuses to be comforted, and my complaining spirit is overwhelmed,” then I need to “call to remembrance my song in the night” (Ps. 77:6). I need to remember other nights and how the day dawned and the shadows flew away as He gave me a song to sing.
Not long ago, I lay awake worrying about a relationship that was damaging our family. My mind raced round and round the situation, trying to find an answer to the dilemma.
Then I deliberately began to remember other nights. There was the dark hour of my mother’s death, but oh, the song of triumph as the day dawned at last and she flew away. There was the lonely period of separation when my husband traveled continually; the frightening night of suspense at the bedside of a child.
Nights there have been, but never a night unmatched by a song! God writes the songs – it is up to us to thank Him, to learn them, and then to sing them!
