Night Watch: Praying Through Sleepless Nights

"My eyes stay open through the watches of the night, that I may meditate on your promise." ~Psalm 119:148

It was 3:30 AM when my daughter’s cries woke me from a deep slumber. The ceiling fan turned slow circles above us, the house was completely dark except for the nightlight, and I sat there running through the math of how many hours I had left before my alarm went off. My brain kicked on, thinking about my day to come, so I hoped reading would help me fall back asleep. It worked, but my allergies decided to take their turn keeping me up. Somewhere around 6 AM, when my daughter woke up again, I made my peace that I wasn’t going back to sleep. I finally realized the one thing I hadn’t tried to quiet my mind and dispel my nagging allergies was to pray. Feeling solemn at my circumstance, I remembered the psalmists knew this hour well.

David wrote, "On my bed I remember You; I think of You through the watches of the night" (Psalm 63:6) — written, most likely, while he was on the run in the wilderness, with sleep the last thing he could count on. The Hebrew word behind "watches," ashmurah, refers to a shift of guard duty — a set stretch of night when someone stayed alert while everyone else slept. Jerusalem's walls needed a watch. So did David's heart.

That's not a coincidence of language. A watch was never wasted time. It was assigned time — attention given to something that mattered while the rest of the world went unconscious. David didn't treat his sleepless hours as an inconvenience to survive. He treated them as an appointment he'd already been given, and he used it.

I don't have a city to guard right now. I have a newborn and a wife. But the assignment isn't as different as it sounds — someone has to stay awake for what matters while everyone else sleeps, and lately that someone is me. The real question is what I do with the hours once I'm already up.

Praying Through Sleepless Nights: An Appointment, Not an Inconvenience

That's what praying through sleepless nights looks like — trading a wasted hour for time spent with God.

Most nights, my first instinct is to reach for my Kindle. But Psalm 119:148 describes a better use of an open-eyed hour: "My eyes stay open through the watches of the night, that I may meditate on your promise." Not to fill the silence. To use it.

And here's the part that actually gets me through the sleepless nights: "He who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep" (Psalm 121:4). Whatever hour I'm awake in, I'm not the only one on duty. HE was already up before I sat down in my chair.

If you've got a watch of your own right now — a literal one, or the kind that shows up as worry at 3 AM — don't waste it resenting the hour. Someone assigned you this attention that others don't have tonight; like David, be intentional with your time awake.

Daily Practice: The next time you're awake when you'd rather not be, resist the phone, the Kindle, the headphones, etc. for the first two minutes. Instead, say one prayer to God about whatever kept you up. Let the watch be an appointment instead of an inconvenience.

Always improve the present moment.