Since March of 2005 I rarely sleep past 3 a.m., which I have complained about in more than one column for WORLD. I will welcome the restoration of normalcy when it returns. But I also wonder what I will lose.

What unquantifiable benefits will be forfeit once those hours from three to six are passed in unconsciousness? What communion with God, what whispers in the night? (What little essays I jot by lamplight?). Some harvest is already apparent: When you are beyond your ability — whether in fatigue or any kind of suffering — that’s generally when you begin trusting God as more than an abstraction (2 Corinthians 1:8,9).

There is something about this time of day not available at other times, something more than just quietness. “Morning by morning he awakens; he awakens my ear to hear as those who are taught” (Isaiah 50:4). Jesus went out alone in the night to be with the Father. (Oh, for access into that sweet conversation!) I keep pen and pad handy by the bed in case He will speak, and pour out his thoughts to me (Prov.1:23). I play like Samuel, lying in the dark and listening for another word from him, from the living God:

“Speak, for your servant hears” (1 Samuel 3:10).

This morning I was thanking God for the privilege of writing these little blog notes. I asked Him to let me take dictation from Him every day. I wanted my writing to be all of God and none of me. But immediately I realized that this is not God’s way. Even the prophets, who wrote and spoke as men “carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Pet.1:21), did not for the most part produce their utterances by a passive transmission from the Spirit.

God so accords his creatures dignity that He deigns to make us authentic coauthors with Him in His endeavors. He does not emasculate us to use us, but enlists the very personalities and experiences He gave to allow us genuine creativity. So Scripture is “God-breathed” (2 Tim.3:16) but it is man-breathed too, in a seamless operation.

I heard a preacher pray before his sermon, “Lord, get me out of the way of your Holy Spirit.” I appreciate that petition, but I hope he meant to request that God get his sin out of the way, and not his manhood. Likewise, God insists on using our agency to send out the gospel appeal, making flawed men ambassadors of salvation. Seems pretty risky to me, but somehow the job gets done.