{"id":1011,"date":"2025-03-12T06:21:00","date_gmt":"2025-03-12T06:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rwnorthblog.org.uk\/?p=1011"},"modified":"2025-03-06T11:22:44","modified_gmt":"2025-03-06T11:22:44","slug":"12th-march-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rwnorthblog.org.uk\/?p=1011","title":{"rendered":"12th March 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Meditation Verse: Psalm 63 \u201cI meditate on You in the watches of the night.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As I get older, sleep comes less easily, and I often have a time of wakefulness in the night. In fact as a young person, I was determined to finish my day with prayer in bed but to my shame I often fell asleep before finishing! &nbsp;I\u2019ve known for a long time that it is better to slow down my thoughts than fret about upcoming events, having said that, some of my best ideas flit in and out of my head in the middle of the night \u2013 if only I\u2019d written them down!&nbsp; This verse makes me think about 1 Samuel chapter 3:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><em><sup>\u201c8&nbsp;<\/sup><\/em><\/strong><em>A third time the&nbsp;<\/em><em>Lord<\/em><em>&nbsp;called, \u201cSamuel!\u201d And Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, \u201cHere I am; you called me.\u201d<\/em><em><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Then Eli realized that the&nbsp;<\/em><em>Lord<\/em><em>&nbsp;was calling the boy.<\/em><em>&nbsp;<strong><sup>9&nbsp;<\/sup><\/strong>So Eli told Samuel, \u201cGo and lie down, and if he calls you, say, \u2018Speak,&nbsp;Lord, for your servant is listening.\u2019\u201d So Samuel went and lay down in his place.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><em><sup>\u201c10&nbsp;<\/sup><\/em><\/strong><em>The&nbsp;<\/em><em>Lord<\/em><em>&nbsp;came and stood there, calling as at the other times, \u201cSamuel! Samuel!\u201d<\/em><em><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Then Samuel said, \u201cSpeak, for your servant is listening.<\/em><em><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><em><sup>11&nbsp;<\/sup><\/em><\/strong><em>And the&nbsp;<\/em><em>Lord<\/em><em>&nbsp;said to Samuel: \u201cSee, I am about to do something in Israel that will make the ears of everyone who hears about it tingle.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I believe we can hear from God in the middle of the night but perhaps if you are struggling with sleep, slow down your breathing and think of the meditation verse quietly and I\u2019m sure sleep will happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here\u2019s a link to a song I was reminded of this week by a good friend:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Take It Easy (featuring Matt Maher and Paul Zach)\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/fxPhR_6p6w4?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Meditation Verse: Psalm 63 \u201cI meditate on You in the watches of the night.\u201d As I get older, sleep comes<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rwnorthblog.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rwnorthblog.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rwnorthblog.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rwnorthblog.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rwnorthblog.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1011"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rwnorthblog.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1011\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1012,"href":"https:\/\/rwnorthblog.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1011\/revisions\/1012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rwnorthblog.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rwnorthblog.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rwnorthblog.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}