When He Gives Me Songs in the Night

One of the most poignant verses in all of Holy Scripture is found in Isaiah 45:3:

“I will give you riches in darkness, and treasures in secret places.”

The famous and infamous, the priestly and the carnal, the religious and irreligious, the excellent and mediocre have experienced the poignancy, and the power of this verse. Literally millions of men, women and children; good and less than good, Christian, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, Agnostic and Atheist have borne the battle, have triumphed, have trusted, have doubted, have struggled, have suffered, have lived, and have died.

Riches seem to be the anonym of darkness, but (as scripture alludes) where do we find treasures, but in those secret places? For all the gold and silver and gemstones which ever adorned a finger or graced a neck or pedestal once languished in the midst of earthy muck and mire.

I’m out and about long before the sky reflects the faintest ray of light off the horizon. For I am a peddler. (Not the trash man type, but the two wheeled type). And in my comings and goings, as I peddle the highways and byways, I have so often experienced an unusual sensation.

For as I have biked past a particular home, or a random vehicle drove by I have noticed the strangest aromatic sensation. For whereas I have always relegated the sense of smell to the least of our five human senses, the immediacy of it has seemed to spring to the top in the wee hours of the morning. Whereas, I have seldom thought of my wherewithal to smell in daylight hours, this has not always been the case, when darkness envelopes what I have always considered my most important anatomical trait; my sense of sight.

As I have steadily clicked off the mileage on my slow, but trusty conveyance, the perfumes and odors of the night season have been nothing short of remarkable. The fragrance of orange blossoms, the pleasant sensation of an approaching rain, the audacity of cigar smoke, the putrification of a nearby water treatment facility.

And so it is with the suffering, struggle and strain we so commonly associate with those little seasons when darkness seems to hide our Savior’s face. And the night shadows envelope what was, only a moment before, our own warm and familiar little world.

And so like the poignancy of the ethereal fragrances and odors to which I have alluded, is the pungent power of our spiritual and emotional darkness to either overwhelm us, and bow us down, or contrastingly, to buoy us up, and to woo us to the only God who can hope to help, and teach us things which can only be taught in those proverbial night seasons.

I came across a beautiful song recently which will, I think, forever encourage me in the midst of my own “dark seasons of the soul;” when the maleficence of the proverbial night overwhelms my sensibilities, as surely as those olfactory sensations to which I have previously alluded.

“Sometimes the path is so dark that I trod.

Often it seems that I am groping for God

But just when I feel that there’s no end in sight,

He gives me songs in the night.

 

He gives me songs in the night,

and His presence dispels all my fears.

Like a balm to my soul saying “God’s in control,”

all my darkness is turned into light.

When He gives me songs in the night.

 

What wonderful joy when His music I hear.

Unspeakable peace that dispels all my fear.

At His grace I’m amazed, in His love I delight,

when He gives me songs in the night.

 

He gives me songs in the night,

and His presence dispels all my fears.

Like a balm to my soul saying “God’s in control,”

all my darkness is turned into light.

When He gives me songs in the night.

 

… When He gives me songs in the night.”

 

By William McDonald, PhD. Excerpt from "(Mc)Donald's Daily Diary" Vol. 5