Audio Transcript
Do you find that you get your best and clearest thoughts when lying in bed at night, when the world is quiet? For me it’s true. But why? What makes that moment especially suited for mental clarity? And for spiritual clarity? Today on Ask Pastor John, John Piper is in the studio again to explain how God speaks to us through our internal dialogue. And we get there from looking at the great Psalm 16. We just read it in our Bible reading, and this question from Zoe in Provo, Utah, asks about it.
“Pastor John, hi. Can you tell me how to discern the instruction that our hearts receive ‘in the night,’ to ensure this is counsel from the Lord and not from other sources? I’m thinking of Psalm 16:7. The text first speaks of God speaking to us through his word. And then it says, ‘In the night also my heart instructs me.’ How does our heart also instruct us, beyond the Bible, particularly in quiet and reflective times of lying in bed? What is the relationship between God’s external counsel to us through Scripture and this self-counsel? Can we even call it that? And should we seek it?”
Psalm 16:7 says (just to get it clear again before our minds), “I bless the Lord who gives me counsel; in the night also my heart instructs me.” How does the heart instruct David at night? How does our heart at night instruct us? Let me make a few comments about the wording of the verse and its context, and then I’ll give some illustrations from my own life about how I think this works today.
Context to Nighttime Wisdom
Those two clauses are parallel in Psalm 16:7, and they shed light on each other. The first clause says, “I bless the Lord who gives me counsel.” And then the parallel clause is, “In the night also my heart instructs me.” The parallel between counsel in the first clause and instruction in the second clause shows that the word for instruction probably has a very practical bent to it; it is that counsel that gives wisdom, advice on how to live.
In fact, the Hebrew word for instruction is almost always translated discipline. But I think, in view of the parallel with counsel, we shouldn’t limit it to God’s chastisement or correction or rebuke but rather say that the instruction is practically oriented. Instruction can include correction and perhaps even rebuke.
In the Night
The fact that David mentions that the nighttime is when some of this counsel and instruction and correction comes is probably owing to the fact that in the life of a king — you can imagine — one who is responsible for overseeing an entire nation, the day is full of meetings and administration and public responsibilities and all kinds of pressing activities. And it’s not unlikely that David felt so pressured that it was hard for him to find time for reflection or meditation. When the nighttime came and everybody went to sleep and he was all alone and everything was quiet and still, he could finally pause from the pressures and be more reflective and receptive to the working of God in his heart.
“The great source of mental clarity and wise counsel comes from just getting crystal clear that God is God.”
It says in Psalm 46:10, “Be still, and know that I am God.” This is the great source of mental clarity, isn’t it? Haven’t we all discovered this? The great source of mental clarity and wise counsel comes from just getting crystal clear that God is God. It’s amazing how many things fall into place in our lives when we stop the hectic pace of life and are quiet enough to realize that there are a few stunning, glorious, clear realities in the universe: God, Christ, Scripture, sin, the cross, the resurrection, the Holy Spirit, heaven, hell, faith, holiness, eternal life. It’s so often in the nighttime when the cobwebs of life pressures blow away — they just blow away — and the breeze of eternity gently blows across our minds, and there’s a wonderful clarity that comes to many issues.
In the Heart
And then there’s the word heart. We focused on the instruction of the counsel, we focused on the night, and now we’re focusing on that word heart. “In the night also my heart instructs me.” In the first clause, the Lord gives me counsel. And in the second clause, my heart instructs me. I think we’re supposed to pay attention to that parallel. God, the Lord, very often deals with us very deeply, not just with mental ideas but with heartfelt inclinations and affections. The Lord himself, through our deep affections, is instructing us.
I think the way the counsel of the Lord and the instruction of the heart interrelate is that in Psalm 1:2 we read that the psalmist meditates on the law of the Lord day and night. At night, his mind is not just empty; he has a word that he meditates on at night. And Psalm 17:3 says, “You have tried my heart, you have visited me by night.” You have visited me; it’s not my heart just being independent. I think David would say that the Lord visits him with thoughts and reflections and affections that are the fruit of faithful meditation on God’s word.
Professor to Pastor
Let me illustrate how I think this works today — at least, this is my testimony from my own experience with God in the night.
One of the most important decisions I ever made in my life — and that shaped absolutely everything from age 33 to this very day — was the decision to leave college teaching and become a pastor. That final decision, the moment where I crossed the line from just reflection about it to commitment to it, was forged in the night. Everyone was in bed and asleep in my house, and I was in the basement, on my knees in my study. It had been building for a long time, and it was nighttime when the dam broke and my heart instructed me.
It was not primarily a calculation of a list of gifts and possibilities and opportunities — it was much more visceral than that. In fact, the word in Psalm 16:7 is kidneys, literally, and the King James translates it “my reins.” It was a Jewish way of speaking of something much deeper than mere thought. Yes, there was a lot of praying, a lot of meditating. Yes, there was a lot of reasoning. But in the end, my heart instructed me. My heart said, “You’re done. Resign as a teacher and seek a pastorate.”
Now, this relates to one of the questions, because I didn’t treat that as infallible. I sought the confirmation of my wife, the chairman of my department, the dean of the school, my trusted friends, my father. And at every point there was, “That’s right. You heard from God; your heart instructed you in the night aright.”
Insight and Admonition
Other times, I’ve been lying awake at night, anxious about some upcoming conversation that’s going to be so hard and complicated, and I’m not at all sure how to approach the crisis. And I lay there and, out of the blue — or I suppose I should say, out of the darkness — the thought came, What about this? What about starting a conversation like this? What about asking this question? And a great peace comes over you: Yes. Yes, that’s right. That’ll work. That’s of God. And you give thanks, and you go to sleep.
I could give other illustrations — for example, about receiving insights into puzzling biblical texts. I’ll knock my head against the desk all day working on Look at the Book, and I can’t figure out something in a verse; it just doesn’t make sense to me. I go to bed; the cobwebs blow away; the clear breezes of eternity blow. And then I think, Oh, yes. I see how it works.
Or a less happy example would be bad habits in my life that just need to be clearly seen so that I say to myself, That’s a bad habit, Piper. Don’t talk that way or do that; it’s a bad habit. You’ve just got to be done with this. And in the peace of the moment with clarity of moral instruction, you just say, “I’m done. I’m going to put my hand to the plow and not do that anymore.”
I think that as long as we are bathing our lives in prayer for God’s guidance and we are saturating our minds with meditation on his word day and night and we are willing to test all things by the Bible and good counsel, then we can welcome this gift. Yes, I think we should ask for it.
“In the night also my heart instructs me.”
