The Message Translation

Verse 8 'my Lord' from New King James Version (NKJV)

How long will this night last?

When I was reading Isaiah 21, I felt the Spirit lead me to the verses you're now hearing in the song.

The Message translation has a beautiful rendering:

Isaiah 21:11-12: “Night watchman! How long till daybreak? How long will this night last?” The night watchman calls back, “Morning’s coming, but for now it’s still night." 

These verses speak to the times we're living in, but also to the personal circumstances some of us are experiencing now and that all of us have faced at some point.

This prophecy announces the fall of Babylon, which, looking at the world around us, is not going to be much longer. That's a doom scenario for the world, but not for us. We, like all of creation, have been eagerly looking forward to that!

But, as these verses also say, "for now it's still night."

All the great ones in the Bible have been where you and we are now—anxiously waiting for the morning, for those first rays of light to pierce through the darkness: Noah, Joseph, Moses, David, Paul, Peter, and even Jesus.

So what can we learn from them?

I think the secret is in the waiting. You see, there's passive waiting, like "wake me up when this is all over," or active waiting. That's like a night watchman scanning the horizon for dust clouds, movement, anything out of the ordinary. That's waiting with expectation. There's hope and trust involved.

That's not to say that while you're still in the dark, it can't get lonely. Having suffered from severe depression for over 20 years, believe me, I know what those days and nights can feel like. But that was before I met Jesus.

Now I know what to do when I'm surrounded by darkness. His word is a lamp to guide my feet and a light for my path (Psals 119:105).

I love what John 1:4-5 says: The Word gave life to everything that was created, and his life brought LIGHT to everyone. [5] The light shines IN the darkness, and the darkness can NEVER extinguish it.

So you see, we, people of the New Covenant, even IN the darkness, we still have Light.💡🔥