Psalm 16:7 I will bless the Lord who gives me counsel; my heart teaches me, night after night.
In her classic book Mysticism, Evelyn Underhill describes five types of prayer. Whether vocal petitions or silent expressions of gratitude or desire, Underhill says these prayers are acts of the will: We’re reaching out to God.
“None can produce it of themselves,” explains Underhill. It is “the work of grace.” While not everyone is receptive to this sort of encounter with God, theologian Thomas Merton argues that the experience is not “something essentially strange and esoteric reserved for a small class of almost unnatural beings and prohibited to everyone else.” It is open to us all.
When the psalmist speaks of God instructing his heart “in the night,” we can take those words literally—God communicating with us in the silence of sleep—or in the spiritual and psychological desolation that is also “night.”
In either case, we can bless the Lord for being merciful—and for reaching out to us when we are incapable of reaching out ourselves.
MOVING FORWARD: Add one of the collects from The Book of Common Prayer to your daily prayers.
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