Prayin' For Daylight

It has been a rough week in Texas and across most of the Country. The record cold and snow and ice and loss of power and water... quite a mess. I mean, it got below zero in East Texas! I was handling it fine, until one particular night. But I am thankful for that night, even with its weight and burden. I needed it. God knew we needed time together. I want to share that with you.

- What would God have us do with our anxiety and fear?

- But can I ask:  do prayers always work?

- If we just give God a few seconds of our time, do the burdens always lift?

- What does it mean to truly be in darkness praying for daylight?

- And how can emotional, longer, deeper prayers bring that light into your soul?

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Welcome to the Excel Still More Podcast. I am your host, Chris Emerson. I'm here to encourage you in your walk with God. Thank you for joining in. Today's podcast is sponsored by Cunningham Financial Group. John Cunningham is a friend of mine and a brother in Christ, and he can help you with financial decisions and future planning. He's been a big help to me and my family, and I commend him to you. You can reach him at 205-913-1720. I am so thankful you're here, so let's get started. So today's episode title might ring a bell for you, depending on your age, I guess. I have always been a big Rascal Flats fan. I would say I haven't listened to them as much in the last 10 years or so, but they started back in the year 2000 and for maybe 10 straight years just released terrific albums, great songs, Gary Lavox, incredible voice, and I still enjoy going back and listening to some of those. Their first single released in 2000 that really put them on the map was titled Prayin for Daylight. It's about a guy who's going through a breakup and he has trouble making it through the night. He has all the lights turned on, the TV turned up. He's just trying to stay occupied to get through to the next day. Although he admits that things aren't going to be any better, the lyrics say, Praying for daylight, waiting for that morning sun, so I can act like my whole life ain't going wrong. Baby, come back to me, I swear I'll make it right. Don't make me spend another lonely night praying for daylight. Anyway, if it piques your interest, you can check it out. Today's episode is not about that Rascal Flats song, except that I thought about it. Those lyrics went through my mind. And for the very first time in my life, I found myself actually praying for daylight this past Monday night. Let me give you a little context for that, though if you live anywhere in Texas or north of us, you know exactly what's been going on. Right now, as I record this, it is Thursday, February the 18th. We have snow and ice everywhere. The whole state is basically shut down. Many of us have gone days without power or water. My son-in-law has a massive four-wheel drive truck, and he was able to get me to the church building today so that I could sit down and record this episode for you. And I'm super excited that we have power here, though at the moment they have the water turned off to try to keep the pipes from busting. It has really been something, and I suspect we still have a few more days before the temperatures warm up and we start helping people who have those pipes burst or vehicle damage from accidents or whatever else that needs to be done. So as of last Monday night, when I laid down for bed, we'd been doing okay. We still had power and water at our house, but we knew that Monday night was going to be the coldest night in my entire life, really in the entire life of Texas history for anyone I know. And there was just something really eerie about knowing that temperatures would be under par or below zero. Just as we were getting settled down for the night, the power went out. It was maybe 11:30 Monday night. It was pitch black, not a single noise to be heard, no cars on the road, the moon was hidden away. It was really something. But we got everyone in their rooms and extra blankets on everybody, and we all settled down for the night. So I woke up at 3 a.m. and it was one of those wakeups that you knew was going to stick for a while. As I said, dead quiet, pitch black. I pick up my phone and I check the weather, and it's three degrees below zero outside. The temperature in the house had dropped dramatically. I could feel how cold my nose was in my fingertips. In addition to that, the silence was cut every 30 seconds by a smoke alarm somewhere on the other side of the house that would beep to indicate that the reserve battery was low. Does anyone know what that sound is like when you don't want to get out of bed and you don't know where it is? And as the minutes roll by, your internal clock is counting off the 30 seconds, knowing that a beep is coming. It was not cool. Now look, in terms of anxiety, stress, worry, I try very hard to not succumb to those kinds of things. We've talked over and over again in these episodes about optimism, prayer, and just really living our faith in God by committing ourselves to trust in his presence and in his power. I still believe all of that. But that night, as it got in close to about 4 a.m. and I'd been laying there for an hour, I had heard at this point 120 beeps, which, by the way, I learned at 6 a.m. when I finally got up to go look around a little bit, was in the bedroom where my mother-in-law was sleeping. She had two dogs in there, her daughter was in there. I don't think I could have gotten in there to fix it anyway. They slept right through it, by the way. But anyway, back to 4 a.m. I'm laying there cold, it's dark, and I think for the first time in my life, I was praying for daylight. God, just bring the sun up. I don't care what the temperature is, I just want to see some light. I want to feel a little bit of warmth. I know we're going to be okay. And I think we all were kind of thinking like this, and maybe we we still are as of February the 18th, we're going to be okay. Even three degrees below zero isn't going to cause everybody inside to die of hypothermia, but it just feels beyond control and eerie. And it was hard. So, unlike the song where he had the lights turned on and the TV turned up and was praying for the sun to come up, my experience was a little bit different than that. Instead, I started talking to God. I asked him for safety through the night, and I tried to turn over and go to bed, but it wasn't happening. So I would begin praying again. Lord, praying for daylight here, praying that you get me through, help me know that you're here with me. But nothing would bring me peace. And that's what I want to talk to you a little bit about. There was something that finally calmed me down, something that helped me relax and ultimately fall asleep for a little while, which I was really thankful for. It was not a 20-second prayer asking for the sun to rise or praying for God's help. It was, bar none, unequivocally, the longest prayer that I had ever offered in my entire life. We know that prayer is important. We know that the Bible says to pray without ceasing. We know that scripture says to be anxious for nothing, but there's really nothing in the word of God that tells you how long your prayers are supposed to last. We see references to Jesus praying throughout the night. I've never done that. We've heard people who prayed for hours on end. I've never done that. For me personally, I think there's just a lack of attention that I can give to one thing. My mind bounces around and wanders all the time. I find it difficult to sit here in this chair and keep talking on this one topic for even 20 minutes. So I've rarely prayed for longer than five or ten minutes at a time. And maybe on this particular night it was just the perfect storm for focusing on God longer than just a few minutes here or there. There really wasn't anything to see on the cell phone, and the battery was getting low anyway, and I thought I probably needed to preserve it. So it was just me in the darkness with the occasional beep. I don't know how long I talked to God. Maybe a half an hour, probably closer to an hour. But I poured out to him everything. It felt like the most honest, transparent, emotional moment I'd ever had in the way that I spoke to my Creator. Now listen, I don't feel the need to defend myself here, but I pray every day. I write prayers, prayers that really make a difference to me. I know that a prayer is helpful. Please remember this. I know that a prayer is helpful when I feel anxiety free, when I feel positive and hopeful, when I have a plan after it's finished. But on this particular night, a few thoughts here or there was just not going to be enough. This was probably so because several things were piling in at the same time. In the darkness and the cold, this sense of mortality and the fragility of life, it started to be real to me. The fact that my wife and children were in the home, and I was supposed to care for them, but they were getting colder by the minute. That was very heavy. And then for me, and this is probably a weakness in my character, and it may sound counterproductive to a lot of what you hear me say here, I tend to carry a lot of pinned up guilt over sin. Just this idea that I should be better by now. I shouldn't have to keep coming to God lamenting the same mistakes, and I was laying there thinking, why would God get me through this night? Why would God put his hand on me and protect my family with all of the shortcomings in my character and the mistakes that I keep making? Now, I knew better than that. At least biblically, I knew passages about God's mercy, but in that dark moment, in the middle of the night, all by myself, I just felt scared, genuinely to the core, frightened, that God may not love me, that God may not get me to daylight, that God may not protect my family because of the things that I have done. Have you ever felt like that? It's awful. And as that became weighty, sleep would have been impossible in any environment. There was nothing going on around me to distract my attention from these weightier matters. There was only one thing to do, pray. I don't mean token phraseology, I don't mean a few short thoughts and knowing that God can fill in all the gaps. It was time to pray. And honestly, looking back on it now, a few days later, it feels like the first time I'd ever really prayed. I know that's not true, but that was the way that it felt in those minutes, in that hour. But listen, I gave everything to God that night. There was not a single secret hidden, there was not a single fear ignored. I asked him for things, I committed myself to him in specific ways, and after there quite literally was nothing left to say, and after I had affirmed to myself what I knew to be true of this merciful, loving, present, kind, and beautiful God, I said, In Jesus' name, Father, I pray. Amen. I turned over to get some rest, and it was gone. The fear, intrepidation, the guilt, gone. I felt completely refreshed. I felt new. I felt like God would get me through the night, which of course, in reality, wasn't a massive risk anyway. It was still like 50 degrees in the house. But what I mean is I felt like God would get me through the night because his hands were upon me. He had taken me into his arms. He had forgiven me all of it, every sin. And he and I together had renewed our hope in the fruitfulness of this relationship. I need more prayer like that in my life. And I'm thankful that it was three degrees below zero in a powerless home with an incessant beep that brought me to the throne room in the way that I didn't even know how badly I needed. Now let me say to you, in these last five minutes, I tried really hard not to record this episode today. I thought nobody's going to want to hear my story. Nothing really provocative happened except a prayer at 3 30 in the morning. I did say the words to God, I'm praying for daylight, so it brought a little rascal flats in, but even that doesn't carry this episode. In fact, I stopped it at the nine minute mark and deleted it and thought about going a different direction. But then I came back and restored it and just kept talking. So in that way, let me just thank you for listening. But I think mostly I feel embarrassed. There are so many people, maybe you, certainly someone in your life, who is going through much darker, more frightening, and difficult situations than a night without power in a Texas snowstorm. There are people battling sickness, sorrow, strife, poverty, guilt, and shame in ways that I can't even comprehend. Please know, I am in no way comparing my life to yours. Our problems are different. Each one of our problems different, different degrees, different longevity, and maybe even different outcomes, but they are common in this one way. God is the solution. God is the solution. Not distraction tactics, not technology, not even people. God is the answer. I heard a fantastic sermon the other day by Russ Bowman, maybe I've referenced it a few episodes ago, where he talked about how the wages of sin is death. And Russ asked, he said, Why do the wages of sin have to be death? Why couldn't they be something less? And then he explained it this way, and I love the way he did this. He said, God is life. God is the source of life. Every soul that lives, every body that lives, God is the one who makes it so. And yet sin separates us from God. We all know that. God cannot have a relationship with unholiness. So if sin separates us from God, and my soul is engrossed in sin, or my body is subject to the penalties of sin, the only option is death. Because God is the only source of life. Anything or anyone separated from that source has only one payout death. This explains why our bodies must die because they are subject to the penalty of sin all the way back in the garden. And this is why guilt and shame and the deterioration of the spirit is the only thing that can happen when we are distanced from the light, from the daylight of God's warmth and the life that only He provides. So I guess what I'm trying to tell you is this like the sun in the sky will warm this place and bring us back, God has the power to do that for you, but it's not always quick and easy and clean. Sometimes it's long and emotional and messy. And this is part of God's design. I feel like he could have taken that anxiety away from me in a millisecond and put me straight to sleep, but I wasn't ready for that. And he knew it. He knew I needed to take an hour and absolutely lay everything at his feet, all the broken pieces, all the fears, so that he alone could piece it back together. It reminds me of the time that Jesus said of the demons, these kind cannot be cast out without fasting and prayer. He didn't mean just saying a few words asking for God's help. He meant setting aside time from everything else until you had reconnected with the power of God and He had complete control over your life. Even days later, I am still feeling the comfort of that otherwise uncomfortable night. And I pray the same for you. Whatever darkness you have, go to God and stay there until He grants you peace, as you are humbly and passionately praying for daylight. Thank you so much for tuning in today. If you enjoyed the program, please remember to share with your family and your friends. Also, you can go to excelstillmore. So until next time, let me leave you with this. Whatever you choose to do today, in the name of the Lord Jesus, excel still.