God Works The Night Shift

Life Journal: God Works The Night Shift

Scripture

The Lord will sustain and strengthen him on his sickbed;

In his illness, You will restore him to health. Psalm 41:3

Observation

David was sick and alone in the middle of the night. The walls were closing in on him as his body was closing down. His enemies were waiting for him to die. His friend had abandoned him. He could not see how he was going to make it through the night. Thankfully, His God works the night shift. The word for “sustain” is the picture of a meal being brought to him and spoon fed as he was too sick to feed himself. Jesus was nursing him back to health at his bed side, literally holding his head up to bring refreshing. Turning that bed of languishing and sorrow into a place of healing. The word here is that Jesus is actually flipping the bed, overturning its purpose. Not just changing the sheets but changing the outcome. What was meant to be a final resting place was now a place of restoration. What was unclean was now clean. What was meant to be the end was a new beginning for David because God works the night shift and shifted the circumstance from death to life.

Application

I honestly can’t remember feeling more alone than during this past Friday night in the ER room here at Kaiser San Diego. Due to COVID protocols they made Cyndi leave me in this concrete room that looked closer to a prison cell than a hospital room. The actual hospital rooms were all full in the floor above so I was asked to lay down on a cot half my size, and if I needed to, to relieve myself in a plastic bottle because they wouldn’t let me leave the room for fear of cross- contamination. The ER Doc came in and berated me for not getting vaccinated as she looked at my x-ray for my lungs. She glared at me with me with anger and said, “your lungs look hell. I’ve seen people like you come in here with lungs like this and they don’t make it out. You’d better call all of your family while you can because I don’t know how much longer you’re going to have the ability to talk to them depending on how this progresses.” She then went on to describe horrific scenarios she has seen and would most likely take place with me. When she walked out I felt like I had just had whatever wind I still had left knocked clean out of me. There I was with COVID Double Pneumonia and now I was grappling with the worst possible thought of not getting to see my family again or at least not for a long while. There were no windows in the room. There was no one to cling to. Whatever faith I had left had fallen to the floor. I couldn’t feel Jesus, but I called out to Him anyway. There in my dark night of the soul I reminded God I had much more He had asked me to do. I wasn’t done. Though I seemed to be a bother to everyone else in he ER that night, my Jesus was working the night shift. In my tears I turned on the worship songs I didn’t have the breath to sing but could mouth the words. I had found recordings of others praying scriptures of healing over me. My mind was going dark quickly and often throughout the night and Jesus kept me from complete despair. I just needed to make it to the morning. During what felt like the longest darkest night of my life Jesus was holding me. Somewhere in the middle of that, “I finally heard His voice whisper, “I’ve got some new songs for you to sing so you will get through this.” It was the light at the end of the tunnel. Where death had been spoken over me My God was speaking life and purpose. My prayer erupted in that moment that has become my mantra through this health crisis: “Breathe of God fill these lungs that I may fill the world with Your praises!”

Prayer

Jesus, You got me through that first night and I will never forget Your faithfulness. This hospital room I’m in now is like going from hell to heaven. The truth is that I have wasted too much of my breathe on my myself. I’ve taken my days for granted and I never want to make that mistake again. You worked the night shift for me and my heart has shifted back to You. I belong completely to you and I don’t want to waste a single breath. Along with David, I say, "12You have preserved my life because I am innocent; you have brought me into your presence forever. 13Praise the Lord, the God of Israel, who lives from everlasting to everlasting. Amen and amen!”