Voice in the Night

Lately, at night, with my window open, I lie still in bed and listen. When the wind is just right, it carries a voice to my bedroom. Namely, it is a song. I do not yet understand the lyrics. Perhaps it is a club singer, mourning over a love long gone, or a street performer, regaling an age-old tale. Yet whatever it is, the song is strangely familiar and hauntingly beautiful. I sometimes ponder quietly in my heart…could it be something more?

I have learned something in my listening. I do not carry the lonely pessimism of J. Alfred Prufrock, who in T.S. Eliot’s Love Song bemoans: “I have heard the mermaids singing each to each. I do not think that they will sing to me.” Instead, I share the eager desire of Samuel, who prays the short prayer Eli taught him to pray at dark: “Speak, Lord, for your servant hears” (1 Samuel 3:9). Like him, I dare to believe the voice in the night may be calling out to me.
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Elijah once heard the voice of the Lord ask him: “What are you doing here, Elijah?” The Bible says the voice did not come from the strong wind, or the earthquake, or the great fire. Instead, it came as a thin silence…a low whisper…a still, small voice.

Adam went through rediscovery when the Lord called out: “Where are you?”

Hagar heard a loving question in her distress: “Hagar, what troubles you?”

Isaiah heard this great call: “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?”

Ezekiel heard a song of praise: “Blessed be the glory of the Lord from its place!”

Daniel overheard this request, posed to an angel: “Gabriel, make this man understand the vision.”

Jonah was probingly asked: “Do you do well to be angry?”

The Apostle Paul’s life was changed when confronted with: “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?”

Peter was given this instruction: “Rise, Peter; kill and eat.” He was also rebuked with: “What God has made clean, do not call common.”

John received this invitation in Revelation: “Come and see!”

Most importantly, Jesus was anointed and affirmed with this: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I a well pleased; listen to him.”

All of this and more came from heaven, sometimes in a holy roar, but mostly in a gentle voice. I do believe with all my heart that the Lord is heard most loudly and clearly through His holy Word, the Bible. We do right to meditate on it night & day and hide it in our hearts. Yet, I also listen for the Spirit’s quiet promptings, spoken in the oft routine, the mundane, and the ordinary. We do well to pause and reflect, be still and know, lie awake and listen…for His voice in the silence may just be singing to us the song we need to hear. Let us lean in a little closer.