There are two kinds of reading in Sile's life and only one of them goes in the notebook.
The one that counts happens at six fifteen. Table, lamp, the good Bible, the journal, the plan she is on, and the plan is a decent one and she is in the third year of it. She writes the date and two or three lines. Some mornings there is nothing to write and she writes that.
The other kind happens somewhere between eleven and two.
She does not sleep well. She has not for about six years, and there is a small lamp on her side, and on the bad nights she puts it on rather than lie there.
And she reads whatever the book falls open at.
No plan. No journal. No pen anywhere near it, because a pen would mean putting the light on properly and getting up. She reads until the thing in her chest goes down, and sometimes that is four verses and sometimes it is most of a book of the Bible, and then she puts the light out.
She has never written one of those nights down.
She is thirty-nine. She was asked in the spring, by a woman at her church who is younger and who is trying to start, what she does, and Sile described the six fifteen and the plan and the journal.
She did not mention the other thing at all. It did not occur to her to.
And it occurred to her about an hour later, in the car, and she has not been comfortable since, because if you asked her where the last real thing happened, where a verse actually got hold of her and changed the shape of a week, she can tell you.
It was a Tuesday, at about ten past one, in the dark, with no plan and no pen, and she could not tell you the reference without going and looking.
And she has been calling that not counting for six years.
And you may have a reading like that. The one that happens in the wrong place, at the wrong hour, without the equipment.
The psalm says what the word does, and it is not a discipline word
Take this off before we go a step further, because you have carried it six years and it was never yours.
Your night reading counts. It always did. Scripture says what the law of the Lord does when it meets a person, and the verb it uses is not one about achievement, and it is the Holy Spirit, not a plan and a journal, who does that work in somebody at ten past one. Set it down here on this bed. It is heavy and you have carried it into every night of it.
Now hear it, and hear the verb.
The law of the LORD is perfect, refreshing the soul.Psalm 19:7
Refreshing the soul.
Some translations have reviving, and it is the same idea: bringing back, restoring, returning something to a person who had run down. That is what it says the word does.
Which is a description of a thing that happens to somebody, not a thing they achieve. Nobody revives themselves on purpose at ten past one in the morning. The revived party is passive and the word is the one doing it.
And notice the psalm does not name a time, a posture, a plan or a pen.
That is what has been happening to you in the dark. That stands written, and His Spirit is the one who does the reviving, and He has never once required a lamp on the table and a date in a book.
Now let me be careful here, because there is a ditch on this side and I have no intention of putting you in it.
Nothing here says the six fifteen is a waste. It is not. Three years of turning up before anybody else is awake is a good thing and God has used it and Scripture has plenty of people rising early on purpose to do exactly that.
And nothing here says structure is for the timid. It is not. Plans keep people in the parts of the book they would otherwise skip, and if you dropped yours you would drift within a month and you know it.
The point is only about the second column in your own accounting, and Scripture says the word revives a soul without naming an hour, and His Spirit is the one who has been doing that at one in the morning for six years.
Here is the tender part, and Scripture is gentle with it. You did not tell that young woman about the nights.
Not because you were hiding it, but because you genuinely did not think of it as part of the answer, and that is what six years of quiet discounting does. His Spirit was in every one of those nights and He has never once needed you to write them down for them to have happened.
So here is the turn, and it takes one passage and nothing else.
Read one passage with no commentary open beside it. Then stop at the end of the passage.
That is the whole of it. Not a new system that includes the nights, which would ruin them and which is the first thing you thought of. Not the abandonment of the six fifteen, which is good and should stay.
One passage, and count it.
The word revives a soul, and no hour is named. That stands written, and His Spirit is the one who has been doing it, and neither of them has ever checked whether the lamp was on.
I am not going to tell you the nights will get easier or that you will sleep. That belongs to God and He works in His own way and in His own timing, and I will not put a promise in His mouth so this page can end well. What I can tell you is what is already yours, and what is already yours is a psalm that puts the work on the word and not on the reader.
Read your passage. Then let the dark ones into the count.
Declare this over yourself
Say these standing on your own, out loud, in ordinary words. Nothing here is a task and nothing here has to be earned; it is already yours in Christ, and it was yours on every one of those nights. Scripture is what these lines stand on, His Spirit is the one who makes them live, and the outcome is His, answered in His own way and in His own timing.
- Six years of nights I never wrote down, you were the realest reading in my life and I have been calling you not proper. In the name of Jesus I set you down on this bed, because I can read this as it reads, and it was written to be understood and I am allowed to take it plainly.
- Idea that reading without a plan and a pen does not count, you were never once checked against the psalm. It says the law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul, and it names no hour and no posture and no equipment at all.
- Lord, You have been reviving me at ten past one in the morning for six years and Your Spirit is the one doing it. You never needed it written down for it to have happened, and I am counting those nights from tonight.
Psalm 19:7
This message is free, and always will be. There is nothing to unlock, nothing to subscribe to, and nothing you owe for having received it.