2 O'clock Thoughts

Sometimes in the middle of the night, I wake up and my mind takes off—wondering, worrying, and what-iffing. All the challenges of the previous day or of life in general come flooding into my head that is seeking to sleep.

At 2 o’clock a.m., I feel an uneasy urgency to solve problems—all problems, large and small—mine and everyone else’s. In case you haven’t noticed, there are a lot of problems around (as though any were in my control). So, instead, I lie there with my eyes open. I know that at 6 o’clock my eyes will be closed in sound sleep, but at 2 o’clock, they won’t go shut.

Often, I find myself trekking out to the recliner, turning on the TV to channel 732(contemporary Christian music), and usually going promptly to sleep. I think it is enough of a distraction to help me change my focus.

There in the night, the problems seem so large and God seems so small or so far away. I know better than that, and those kind of thoughts need to be 2 Corinthians 10:5’ed, “Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.”

I have made a powerpoint presentation of images from the Hubble Space telescope. The images are fabulous. Accompanying the presentation, I’ve used a song (#5 on the player) from Psalm 8:3-4“When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?”

After catching a vision of what God rules over in the heavens, I can’t help but echo the psalmist—what are we that God would notice us? That God would care for us?

Problems large and God small? No way! Our human brains cannot possibly fathom the size, the power, or the glory of God. I think I am going to teach a lesson in Sunday School about “Horton Hears a Who” and seeks to help a tiny world, or “Men in Black 2” where there is a galaxy on a small marble. We are tiny creatures on a tiny speck in a small galaxy in God’s realm. And yet, He loves us. Wow!

♫Oh Lord, how majestic is your name
We sing Lord, how majestic is your name
Oh Lord, how majestic is your name
In all the earth!♫