Midnight

“Our worship in our midnight changes us-but also has the power to unchain those who are imprisoned around us…for those who are watching our imprisonment at midnight.”  ---Louis Giglio, from the sermon Midnight in Phillipi.

Paul and Silas started out a day freeing a girl from bondage and slavery while proclaiming truth to set many free.  But sadly the men who were making money from the girl were angry, and handed them over to be beaten ruthlessly before being thrown into shackles and then prison.  Around midnight, rather than wringing their hands, crying and cursing their accusers, the duo began to sing praises and worship God.  While chained.  While falsely imprisoned.  They were Roman citizens, and by rights, should not have been placed in prison.  But they didn’t scream into the dark that their bondage was unjust, they sang.  And what happened?  An earthquake came and rattled all their shackles off and the prison doors open.  And it wasn’t just their chains that fell loose, it was freedom for all the men in the prison that night; those there justly and unjustly.  And just as their guard, who was afraid of the retaliation that would certainly come upon him, was just about to kill himself, the men called out to him, and told them that no one had left.  They had been freed, by a direct act of God, and yet they stayed until they were set free by their captors.  And then, the most beautiful thing happened, they showed the jailer the way to freedom for eternity; he and his whole house believed and were baptized. 

As I listened to the retelling of this story, one that I know well, and yet haven’t ever related to personally before now, I wept and praised God.  We started a day out 14 months ago, with joy and carefree purpose, and ended that day in horror by no fault of our own.  And in this place of a long midnight, with pain that hasn’t ever gone away, nightmares that still threaten our sleep, baby girls who fear the dark and loud noises and separation from their family, and a life that is moving forward while still fractured and healing…we are trying to sing.  We love what God has done, but more than his works, we Praise Him for who he is.  He rescued us, and we can never stop singing of His faithfulness. 

In Isaiah 45, it reads, “I will give you the treasures of the darkness, secrets found in the hidden places.  Then you will know that I am Lord, who rescued you.”  If I only live in the sun, the warm days filled with ease and comfort, I will miss out on those treasures.  And while it is counter the human’s nature to pray for difficulties, I will not curse my Creator when I enter difficulties that are inevitable for us all…I will try to sing, and watch for the secrets of the hidden places.  And if I could rewind time, and go back to that day, that started in the sun, and ended in a prison, I would and undo it….but I am thankful that God doesn’t allow me that option, because of the beauty He has given us since.  Yes, I would love to have the beauty and not the pain.  But sadly, that is not the way that life goes outside of Eden.  There will always be heartbreaks and injustice and dying on this side of eternity.  So I will rely on God, who is faithful to His promises, and believe that He works for the good in all situations, even the ones that break my heart.  (Romans 5:8)

Naomi is singing from her prison.  She loves those around her, which flows out of the love that she has been filled up with.  Her midnight is not over, she is still in the night, but the morning is coming.  She is not chained, because she knows who made her, who is faithful to her.  She knows that God is refining her, though not as silver, but through the furnace of suffering.  (Isaiah 40:10)  She believes that she awoke in our car, rather than entering eternity, because God has a beautiful purpose for her life.  I am absolutely speechless that I have a front seat to the unfolding of her life, and the lives of all our children.  As our family has been given this beautiful gift of “learning the secret things that belong to the LORD our God, but have been revealed to us and to our children, they will be ours forever, so that we may follow Him.”  (Deuteronomy 29:29)  Our prayer, as parents, is that our 6 children, and their children, and theirs, and so on, will always know of God’s faithfulness, even in the midnights.  We pray that they will learn to sing of His faithfulness and love.  That they will worship Him in the middle of their hardest trials, and as a result of their faith and love, chains of those around them will be broken.  That people who see them will want to know God more, and give their lives over to the One who created them and loves them. 

 

We are still singing; although, some days our songs are merely whispers.   But other days we see and hear glimmers of sunrise coming.  Like when we hear the joy and giggling in Naomi’s voice, the kind that can only come because she is having better days.  Some days we see the integrity of our sons, growing stronger, as they have risen up and served their family; their moments of maturity are like rays of sun coming up over the hills.  Some days we hear about a person who has heard our story, and their faith was made stronger, through our singing.   Some days feel like midnight is passed, and sunrise is just around the corner.  When that day started 14 months ago, we loved and trusted God.  But since our midnight, we have completely surrendered to whatever and whomever He has for us.  We are freer than we have ever been.

If you start a day in the sun, and end that day in the darkest midnight you can imagine, don’t give up.  God is there.  If you can sing, sing with all your might.  If you can only whisper, call out to Him.  If you can only hold on, then simply hold on, as the Spirit will intercede for you with the words that won’t come.   Sunrise is coming.