Your Rights are Secure
“Will not God secure the rights of his chosen ones who call out to him day and night?”
Luke 18:7
For the first couple of weeks in Ireland, Jimmy and I didn’t sleep much. The time difference—that is an obvious factor, one that we figured we would have to wrestle with as both adults and children. But there were other things that kept us awake, things that surprised us.
First, it never gets completely dark in the summer months, so it was weird climbing under the covers while sunlight filled our bedrooms. It felt like trying to nap at noon.
Our girls were in new beds, new bedrooms, new house, new country, new adventures. It was all too new for them to ever feel like sleeping, and they seemed to instinctively know when we had just fallen asleep before waking us up to chat about how new everything was.
Also, the Irish do not believe in top sheets. Americans love top sheets, but not the Irish. They have their own beautiful way of doing things. We slept with nothing but someone else’s grandmother’s quilt on top of us. It felt like something important was missing, and it took some getting used to.
Still another factor was that it was freezing—in the summer. We had slate floors in our cottage, so getting into bed each night was an exercise in trying to warm parts that should be warm in order to enter the REM cycle.
But all of this was still not the most unusual thing that kept us awake. We lived on a working sheep farm, and the plump, little lambs just outside our cottage door bleated all night long.
I do not exaggerate. I truly mean all night long.
How their mothers slept, I’ll never know, but they seemed able to block out the noisome cries of their wooly babes better than we could. Jimmy and I would lay in bed, awake, literally counting sheep bleats. Around 2 am, it really stops being funny. If I could have bottle-fed them all, I might have tried it, just to get a little peace and quiet.
But the interesting thing is that after a few weeks, we were finally able to sleep. The bleating became the Irish ambient noise to which we happily dozed. We were able to ignore the lambs, tune them out, pretend they did not exist so we could get some rest. We simply didn’t hear them anymore.
God never does that with us.
Jesus’ question today is hard. I’ve been wrestling with it for some time. He asks,
“Will not God secure the rights of his chosen ones who call out to him day and night?”
I wrestle with it because I have a most beloved friend that has been calling out to God, day and night, for deliverance. My friend has faithfully bleated out prayers to God for his provision, his rescue, all through the midnight hours. Time and again, it seems like an end to the suffering is at hand, that the pain for her is over — but then something will happen that makes the suffering remain. My friend loves God with all her heart. She is one of his chosen. She calls out to him day and night.
What gives?
In my desire to be honest with God, I must humbly ask him a few questions in response to his own:
Have you been able to tune out her cries, God?
Have you stopped hearing her?
Have you fallen asleep to the tune of her weeping?
It makes me uncomfortable to verbalize these questions, but I know this is what Jesus wants from me. He can handle my questions, just as he can hold my friend’s pain. My friend and I, like the psalmists, are free to come before God and cry out as lambs, as children, as those who feel ignored and forgotten:
“Long enough, GOD — you’ve ignored me long enough.
I’ve looked at the back of your head long enough.
Long enough I’ve carried this ton of trouble, lived with a stomach full of pain” (Psalm 13:1,2).
Jesus responds to the psalmist’s plea with the honest trust of a Son:
“If your child asks for bread, do you trick him with sawdust? If he asks for fish, do you scare him with a live snake on his plate? As bad as you are, you wouldn’t think of such a thing. You’re at least decent to your own children. So don’t you think the God who conceived you in love will be even better?” (Matthew 7:8-11).
Our Father, Jesus teaches us, wrought us together by his love. He formed us in his love. He brought us forth in his love. The very first fact of our existence is his love. This same Father quietly works behind the scenes in our lives, Jesus explains. Most of the time, his love is not loud or showy, his provision does not draw attention. But he is our Father just as he is my own, Jesus affirms, and our Father loves. Our Father invites my questions and answers them:
“Can a mother forget the infant at her breast, walk away from the baby she bore? But even if mothers forget, I’d never forget you — NEVER. Look, I’ve written your names on the backs of my hands.”
Isaiah 49:15,16
The ewes were able to ignore the cries of their babies. Sometimes I, too, can tune out the sounds of my own daughters’ squeals and shouts. But our Father—my Father and the Father of my beloved friend and the Father that is yours—he can never and will never ignore us. We were conceived in his great love. We are sustained in his great love. We have our life, breath and very being all because of his great love.
So, my dear friend, I know it hurts. I honor your pain and your suffering. But he will secure the rights of his chosen that cry out to him day and night.
He will secure your rights. He will come for you. He will rescue you. He will deliver you.
He is the Father who conceived you love. He is the Jesus who intercedes for you. He is the Wild Goose that groans when you can bleat no longer. We can stake our lives on it.
In the meantime, I watch and wait with you in the dark. We will bleat all night together.