Midnight Rememberings

‘When I remember Thee upon my bed.’—Ps. lxiii. 6.
MEMORY is never’so busy as in the quiet time while we are waiting for sleep; and never, perhaps, are we more tempted to useless recollections and idle reveries than * in the night watches.’ Perhaps we have regretfully struggled against them; perhaps yielded to effortless indulgence in them, and thought we could not help it, and were hardly responsible for ‘vain thoughts ‘ at such times. But here is full help and bright hope. This night let us ‘remember Thee.’ We can only remember what we already know; oh praise Him then, that we have material for memory!

There is enough for all the wakeful nights of a lifetime in the one word ‘Thee.’ It leads us straight to ‘ His own self;’ dwelling on that one word, faith, hope, and love, wake up and feed and grow. Then the holy remembrance, wrought by His Spirit, widens. For ‘we will remember the name of the Lord our God,” in its sweet and manifold revelations. ‘I will remember the years’ and ‘the works of the Lord.’ ‘Surely I will remember Thy wonders of old.” Most of all ‘we will remember Thy love,’ the everlasting love of our Father, the ‘exceeding great love of our Master and only Saviour,’ the gracious, touching love of our Comforter. And the remembrance of all this love will include that of its grand act and proof, ‘Thou shalt remember that . . . Jehovah thy God redeemed thee.’3
„ Perhaps we know what it is to feel peculiarly weary-hearted and dispirited ‘on our beds.’ But when we say, ‘O my God, my soul is cast down within me;’ let us add at once, ‘ There/ore will I remember Thee.’*
And what then? what comes of thus remembering Him ?’ My soul’ (yes, your soul) ‘shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness, and my mouth shall praise Thee with joyful lips: when I remember Thee upon my bed, and meditate on Thee in the night watches.’6 What can be a sweeter, fuller promise than this!—our heart’s desire fulfilled in abundant satisfaction and joyful power of praise! Yet there is a promise sweeter and more thrilling still to the loving, longing heart.

1 Ps. XX. 7. 2 Ps. Ixxvii. 10, II. 3 Deut. xv. 15.

4 Ps. xlii. 6. 6 Ps. Ixiii. 5, 6.

‘Thou meetest. . . those that remember Thee in Thy ways.’1 And so, this very night, as you put away the profitless musings and memories, and remember Him upon your bed, He will keep His word and meet you. The darkness shall be verily the shadow of His wing, for your feeble, yet Spirit-given remembrance, shall be met by His real and actual presence, for ‘ hath He said and shall He not do it?” Let us pray that this night ‘ the desire of our soul’ may be ‘ to Thy name, and to the remembrance of Thee:1