Wide Awake And Struggling

You hold my eyelids open; I am so troubled that I cannot speak.

Psalm 77:4

The Psalmists are brutally honest about their spiritual experiences. Asaph is particularly so. In the psalm from which our text derives, he is obviously struggling spiritually, and that has an effect on the rest of his life. One of the areas of his difficulty is sleep. In our text he says, ‘You hold my eyelids open.’ A glib, trite piece of advice which some would offer is, ‘Well, you should use that time to pray.’ Asaph says, ‘I am so troubled that I cannot speak.’ The implication seems to be that he is struggling even to pray. If we are truthful, many of us would have to freely admit that this is where we, at times, find ourselves. What is the answer for such a condition? Where does Asaph go? From verse ten of the psalm onwards he rehearses the faithful acts of God in the past. He ultimately lands on God’s leadership of Israel in the wilderness. He alludes particularly to the crossing of the Red Sea. ‘Your way was in the sea, Your path in the great waters, And Your footsteps were not known. You led Your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron.’ This brought Asaph to Christ, as it also brings us to Him. It was Christ, as the fiery, cloudy pillar who led the nation of Israel through the Red Sea. He held off their enemies at their back, and gave them light to go forward. It is a blessed thing when in our sleepless troubled nights Christ graciously draws our eye toward Him. He has ever been the Faithful Deliverer of His people from their hardest troubles. He has not failed them. He will not fail us.

Our Kind and Gracious God,
We praise You that You point us to Christ in all seasons of life.
We rejoice that even in the darkest hours, when we are most distraught,
You still show Him to us.

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning