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Psalm 77:6:
6I call to remembrance my song in the night: I commune with mine own heart: and my spirit made diligent search.
Our sleep and our prayers have this in common, that, both he who sleeps and he who prays, closes his eyes and withdraws himself from the light into the darkness.
And yet this is not the same.
He who would pray shuts his eyes in order not to be distracted by what is seen around him. If it were possible, he would prefer to stop his ears as well, in order not to be disturbed by any noise from his surrounding.
There is prayer in company with others to which a wholly different consideration applies. But one who prays by himself seeks his strength in isolation.
This is no less strongly expressed in what Jesus said to his disciples: "But thou when thou prayest, enter into thy closet and shut the door behind thee" (Matthew 6:6). And by His own example, Jesus expressed the very same idea, as often as He withdrew Himself for prayer into the solitude of the wilderness or into the loneliness of the mountains. Yea, even in Gethsemane the Lord seeks the lonely spot for His last conflict of prayer, and He leaves His disciples to remain behind at a distance, in order that He might be alone during His prayer.
In so far as this expresses a seeking after rest and quiet for the sake of our prayer, it agrees with what we seek after in sleep.
But with this the similarity ends.
For in prayer we withdraw ourselves from the world, in order that in our fellowship with Almighty God we may be the more fully awake to the order of higher things.
In sleep, on the other hand, we isolate ourselves from the world in order to sink back into unconsciousness and into forgetfulness of self.
At least so it is when conditions are normal. In the state of paradise it would always have been so. But in the hard reality of things as they are now, prayer and sleep are constantly confused in a twofold way. So that in prayer sometimes, we are overtaken by what belongs to sleep; and contrariwise when we lie down to sleep, the soul passes over into the attitude of prayer.
Not as though so many actually fall asleep in prayer. We grant that this does happen when the prayer of another is too lengthy. But this, of course, is very exceptional. But what does frequently happen is, that he who joins in prayer under the devotional leadership of some one else, allows his mind to be diverted or unconsciously lets it rest.
And, on the other hand, that the night, which was intended for sleep, not infrequently ends in prayer, is seen in the case of Asaph, who in Psalm 77 (R. V.) mourns: "My hand was stretched out in the night to my God in prayer. Thou, Lord, holdest mine eyes watching. In the night I communed with mine own heart, and my spirit made diligent search."
When we close our eyes, whether for sleep or for prayer, we go out from the light, by excluding it, into the desired darkness and obscurity.
With sleep we do this in order that our spirit may sink back into the darkness of the unconscious life; with prayer we do this in order that, shut out from the light of day, we may seek with clearer consciousness the higher light which glows about God's Throne.
By nature it is not darkness that comes to disturb the light. Darkness is there of itself. And it is only by the dawning light that darkness is overcome.
It was not light that existed first but darkness. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And in that darkness, light broke forth by the creative Word of God.
And when afterwards the darkness yet covers the earth again, this darkness does not come from without into the light, but it is there of itself, as soon as the light withdraws itself.
This is so in the world of matter, and it is not otherwise spiritually.
There was darkness in nature, and this continued until God created the light. And this comes back again as soon as God withdraws the light of sun, moon and stars. Then there is deep night again.
And even so there is in the spirit of a newborn child, first perfect unconsciousness and ignorance. This lasts until the light of the consciousness awakens in his soul, and gradually increases in clearness. Here, likewise, this clarity of the self-consciousness can set again in darkness. This takes place with one in a fit of faintness, with one who becomes hypnotized, in part with the insane and with the dotage of old age. Moreover, this selfsame thing happens commonly every twenty-four hours.
For sleep is nothing else than that the light of our consciousness passes over again into the twilight of slumber, and finally into deep, sound sleep.
In the night, the light of day around us and the light of the self-consciousness within us have set in darkness and unconsciousness.
It may even be said that the more perfectly the light of the self-consciousness went out in our sleep, the better and the more healthy the sleep was.
On waking up in the morning, not to know anything of the seven hours which we slept away in the night is the most normal operation of nature.
So the first man slept, before he fell, in paradise. So sleeps the young babe at its mother's breast. So sleeps the weary day-laborer whose mental activity is limited. But such a sleep is no longer the rule. And our sleep becomes restless all too frequently, either because of physical disturbance, sickness or excess, or because the spirit within us is too deeply stirred to permit perfect forgetfulness to settle down upon our self-consciousness.
And so there comes both the dream-life and the half, or entire, sleeplessness.
The dream-life is still a realm which has been but little investigated. Enough that we know that it can occasion fear and anxiety; that in sinful imagination it can sully our consciousness; that sometimes prophecies and premonitions loom up in it; and that, more than once, God has made use of the dream-life by which to execute His holy Counsel.
But next to this sort of dream-life, and still more painful, stands the misery of the sleepless night, when care keeps the heart waking; when the spirit within us is overwrought; when a task that awaits us in the morning begrudges us our sleep, or when sickness holds back the passionately longed-for sleep from our eyes.
This sleeplessness is a part of our human misery, a part of human suffering still foreign to those of younger years, but which with advancing years is spared to few.
As in all true prayer the spirit shuts itself off from this world only to wake up the more fully in a higher world of thought, so it can be the case in this dream-life and in this sleepless slumber.
For in sleep the spirit ought to sink away into forgetfulness, but instead of this it is the more fully alive in terrifying or in holy dreams. And so in that sleepless slumber our spirit finds in place of rest only a higher tension and a far more busy and wearying activity.
And God the Lord is in this also.
Asaph expresses it with fervent piety: "Thou holdest mine eyes waking."
But this very acknowledgment on the part of the saint, that it is no chance, but that it is the Lord Who holds our eyes waking, shows, that this dream-life too, as well as this sleepless slumber serves a purpose.
The Lord has an intention with respect to them. And when in the night our heart communes with itself and our spirit makes diligent search, this, too, is a part of our life for which we are responsible.
Sin lies not merely in words and works, but also in thoughts, in what goes on in our spirit. Even for our dreams we are responsible. Not for what happens to us in those dreams, but for what we do in them. Not every one has the same dreams. Every one dreams according to the content of his imagination. And however little we may be lord and master over our dreams, every one feels that if our Savior has known a dream-life, it can not have been otherwise than one that was perfectly holy.
In the night itself we can not make a dream different from what it is, but the purifying of our imagination and the cleansing of our thoughts can in the long run guide our dreams into sinless realms.
But, from the nature of the case, our responsibility is far greater for what our spirit does in the sleepless hours of night. Then our spirit can either bring thoughts of the world into the dark of night or it can think and ponder upon holy things. Or it can vex itself within us to no purpose and for no good.
But what our spirit then should do in the darkness is to unlock the gate of the realm of what is holy and commune with a higher world.
In the case that in the midst of sleep you are awake but a few minutes, you can and should engage your spirit with your God. And upon awaking, your very first thought should again be of Him. "O God, Thou art my God; early in the morning will I seek thee" (Psalm 63:1, Dutch Version).
To him who so understands it, sleepless hours are a spiritual gold mine.
There are not a few who in just such sleepless nights, or in hours without sleep, have spiritually been wondrously enriched.
This, too, is an instance of the loving kindness of the Lord.
Sleeplessness is one form of our misery, but this, too, God by His grace turns to our good.
Yea, there are those who in such nights have been remembered spiritually by God so generously and so richly that a night of deep sleep has sometimes seemed to them a lost night.
The work of God upon the souls of His elect goes on in the hours of night in a way ever glorifying to His Name.
* * * * * * *This devotional classic offers 110 meditations on a single thought from Psalm 73: "As for me, it is good to be near to God." The author states, "The fellowship of being near unto God must become reality ... it must permeate and give color to our feeling, our perceptions, our sensations, our thinking, our imagining, our willing, our acting, our speaking. It must not stand as a foreign factor in our life, but it must be the passion that breathes throughout our whole existence."
The meditations reflect the blending of spiritual vigor with doctrinal loyalty so consistently expressed in the life of Abraham Kuyper. These are devotions with true substance, avoiding the extremes about which Kuyper adds a word of caution: "Stress in creedal confession, without drinking from the Living Fountain, runs dry in barren orthodoxy, just as truly as spiritual emotion, without clearness in confessional standards, makes one sink in the bog of sickly mysticism."
Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920) was a Dutch political leader and Calvinist theologian. Elected to parliament in 1874, he became Prime Minister in 1901 and served in that capacity until 1905. As a theologian, he revived a systematic, orthodox Calvinism. He founded the Free Reformed Church and the Free University of Amsterdam. His other works include Principles of Sacred Theology, Lectures on Calvinism, and The Work of the Holy Spirit
Further information about Abraham Kuyper's life can be seen in the translator's "Biographical Note"; further information about To Be Near Unto God can be Abraham Kuyper's "Preface" to that book.
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