Night Meditations

I was about seventeen when I bought myself a quality table radio with an alarm and sleep function. It was a very nice radio with a large speaker. I could listen to programming as I went to sleep at night. I would often try to go to bed at 10:30 at night so I could set the sleep timer for thirty minutes and go to sleep listening to a program called “Nightwatch” produced by Moody Radio and hosted by Chuck Wagoner. The program was aired by WEEC from Springfield, Ohio. Chuck Wagoner had a rich baritone voice. He spoke very quietly and in an unhurried way. It was a perfect way to end the day with the things of the Lord on your mind.

What you think about before you go to sleep at night could determine the course of your entire life. You will meditate on something in the few minutes before you go to sleep at night. What do you meditate on? Some go to bed thinking about the injuries done to them. Contrary to the Scriptures which say “let not the sun go down upon their wrath,” they go to bed meditating on their hurts. Some go to be meditating on their regrets, their sins, their failures. Some people go to bed meditating on their worries and their fears. Their hearts are filled with anxiety in the last moments of the day. Some go to bed meditating in their desires for things. They go to bed meditating on their ambitions. Others go to bed mediating on their illicit sexual desires. God’s intent is that we meditate on the things of the Lord in the night hours

David set his heart on the Lord at night. You can see this repeatedly in the Psalms. Psalm 63:5-6 says: My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness; and my mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips: When I remember thee upon my bed, and meditate on thee in the night watches.

Psalm 16:7 I will bless the Lord: who hath given me counsel: my reigns (mind) instruct me in the night seasons.

Psalm 17:3 Thou hast proved mine heart; thou hast visited me in the night.

Psalm 42:8 Yet the Lord will command his lovingkindness in the daytime, and in the night His song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life.

Psalm 77:6 I call to remembrance my song in the night. I commune with mine own heart: and my spirit made diligent search .

Psalm 119:55 I have remembered thy name, O Lord in the night.

Psalm 119:62 At midnight I will rise to give thanks unto thee because of thy righteous judgments.

Psalm 119:148 Mine eyes prevent the night watches , that I might meditate in thy Word. That means I look forward to them.

Psalm 4:4 Stand in awe and sin not: commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still .

Psalm 63:5-7,8 My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness; and my mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips: When I remember thee upon my bed, and meditate on thee in the night watches.

Isaiah 26:9 With my soul have I desired thee in the night : yea, with my spirit will I seek thee early.

Isaiah 30:29 Ye shall have a song, as in the night when a holy solemnity is kept .

God often spoke to people in the night. He spoke to Jacob, Laban, Samuel, Daniel, Peter, Mary and Joseph in the night. As one once said; “God works the night shift.”

In September of 1978 I as twenty years old. That was the autumn I met Lois. I did my very best to completely monopolize her time and attention, which I have continued resolutely for the past nearly thirty years. We began to spend time together and I knew early on that I wanted her to be my wife. I knew I was going to be a pastor, so I assumed that she was called to be a pastor’s wife. I wasn’t sure if she knew it yet so one night on a walk around the campus I worked up the courage to ask her.

I said; “Did you ever think you might be a pastor’s wife?”

She said; “No, but when I was in high school I used to lay in bed and night and listen to Lester Roloff on the radio and I felt like God was telling me I was going to do something for Him. I thought maybe I would help troubled girls.

It warmed my heart that night as we were strolling through fallen leaves on that cool autumn night that years before, in my quiet, private meditations on my bed God had been stirring up longings for God and for eternal things in my heart using a Christian radio station late at night. A state away a girl who I had never met was listening to her radio too. God was working in her heart, stirring up her heart for ministry and for God. He was tugging us both into a rich life of ministry together that neither of us would ever have imagined.

Ken Pierpont
Brook Place
Hinsdale, Illinois
April 2, 2007