Psalm 119:62

In the middle of the night I rise to praise you
for your righteous judgments.

I rarely think of being awake in the middle of the night as a good thing. Sleep is a good thing. I like to get a good sleep. A couple of years ago when various potential medical issues made me decide to start a regular exercise program, I was needing to get around 9 hours. Two years later, I’m fine with seven. I thank the Lord for the better sleep, but I do it in the morning, not the middle of the night.

I suspect there isn’t a greater level of righteousness involved in waking up and praising God in the middle of the night. While the psalmist says he does this, I don’t see midnight praise, at least on a regular basis, commanded in scripture.

Thinking about this led me to a different question, however, which is just what you do if you wake up in the middle of the night. One of the things that wakes me up is worry. It can be the sort of thing that requires that I check on something. This can be prudence or useless worry. When Jody was having certain medical problems, I would set an alarm and intentionally wake up to check on her. I think she would have preferred that I didn’t. She valued my sleep more highly than I did.

On the other hand I can end up awake in the middle of the night worrying about things that I really cannot fix, especially not at that time. This ends up being useless. I have to distract myself from whatever is worrying me. I can read, play a mentally stimulating game, or, shocking as it seems, I could pray and praise God.

What good does that do? I don’t think God is more likely to help me with things if I wake up at 3 am in order to pray about it. God hasn’t forgotten what’s going on. The purpose of any activity here is to quit making myself sick worrying about things I can’t change. There are relatively few things I can change at 3 am.

The value in the time of prayer is in settling my mind and spirit and bringing my focus back to what is important. That’s the one thing I can do, which is get some sleep so that I can be more effective at various things the next day.

If I recite this verse, it is not a boast. It’s not a claim to greater spiritual accomplishments. It’s an admission that I was so busy worrying, I couldn’t do the most useful thing, which was to get the appropriate amount of rest.

Which leads me full circle back to exercise. One of the advantages for me of deciding that exercise was a duty to restore my health (which, by the way, it has done), is that I don’t feel like I’m lazy or dodging work. I can feel righteous as I walk. I’m improving my health so I can work more effectively. Which tells me something else. I’m too much driven by that work.

So perhaps I need to spend some time doing something I can’t claim is a “good work.” Perhaps I need some time that is actual rest, and do so without tricking my brain into believing I’m still doing important stuff.

What stuff might you need to get out of the way?

(Featured image generated by Jetpack AI.)