{"id":835,"date":"2011-04-13T21:30:50","date_gmt":"2011-04-14T02:30:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/?p=835"},"modified":"2011-04-13T21:30:50","modified_gmt":"2011-04-14T02:30:50","slug":"in-the-night","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/?p=835","title":{"rendered":"In the Night"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Dear Lord; Good evening Father.<\/p>\n<p>Wow Father, what a long and tiring day this was.\u00a0 I started the day at a client\u2019s site at 7:45 this morning, and finally drove into my driveway at 8:45 tonight.\u00a0 I\u2019m wiped.<\/p>\n<p>Heading home this evening, I was driving along some back roads while Andrew Peterson\u2019s <em>\u201cCounting Stars\u201d<\/em> CD massaged my mental temperament following the day\u2019s toils.\u00a0 It was a dark and clear evening, and the stars seemed especially bright away from the street lights and incursions of blatant civilization.\u00a0 My mind drifted a bit, and I found myself pondering how much I actually enjoy driving at night; soaking in the Stillness and clarity of the draped surroundings.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>And then track 9 started up\u2026<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It always fascinates me Father, how You manage to guide my thoughts and link them up with external reinforcements to get my attention.\u00a0 In this case, it came in the form of a song on the CD called <em>\u201cIn the Night My Hope Lives On\u201d<\/em>.\u00a0 From my own thoughts of how in the Stillness of night I find comfort in Your Presence, this ballad reached in and awoke my spirit.\u00a0 What an amazingly powerful song this is Lord:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" width=\"600\" height=\"480\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/1ynV2Fm9Qpc?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The lyrics are truly wonderful Father\u2026 such a potent description of the Hope we find in Your Love for us.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>\u201cI can see the crowd of men retreating<br \/>\nAs he stands between the woman and their stones<br \/>\nAnd if mercy in his holy heart is beating<br \/>\nThen in the night my hope lives on<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>I remember how they scorned the son of Mary<br \/>\nHe was gentle as a lamb, gentle as a lamb<br \/>\nHe was beaten, he was crucified, and buried<br \/>\nAnd in the night, my hope was gone<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>But the rulers of the earth could not control Him<br \/>\nThey did not take his life\u2013he laid it down<br \/>\nAll the chains of death could never hope to hold him<br \/>\nSo in the night my hope lives on\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>What a perfect way to end my day Lord; focusing on the Hope You so freely gifted us with.\u00a0 And in the night, my hope lives on.<\/p>\n<p>Amen.<\/p>\n<p>~Phather Phil<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dear Lord; Good evening Father. Wow Father, what a long and tiring day this was.\u00a0 I started the day at a client\u2019s site at 7:45 this morning, and finally drove into my driveway at 8:45 tonight.\u00a0 I\u2019m wiped. Heading home this evening, I was driving along some back roads while Andrew Peterson\u2019s \u201cCounting Stars\u201d CD [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[350,930,99,1153,551,45,27,581,1156,915,236,702,497,259,1157,487,173,42,844,1154,208,686,140,159,464,121,1152,222,904,78,104,880,133,388,238,141,506,670,714,840,587,572,1155,41,609,117,258,373,95,817,66,362,730,378,379],"class_list":["post-835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-emails-to-god","tag-amazing","tag-andrew-peterson","tag-attention","tag-ballad","tag-beaten","tag-clarity","tag-comfort","tag-control","tag-counting-stars","tag-dear-lord","tag-death","tag-drive","tag-driveway","tag-driving","tag-driving-at-night","tag-earth","tag-father","tag-focus","tag-follow","tag-gentle-as-a-lamb","tag-gift","tag-guide","tag-heart","tag-home","tag-hope","tag-illness","tag-in-the-night-my-hope-lives-on","tag-joy","tag-lie","tag-life","tag-light","tag-long","tag-love","tag-lyrics","tag-mental","tag-mind","tag-morning","tag-night","tag-order","tag-peter","tag-power","tag-powerful","tag-powerful-song","tag-presence","tag-remember","tag-son","tag-song","tag-special","tag-spirit","tag-start","tag-stillness","tag-temper","tag-thoughts","tag-wonder","tag-wonderful"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p18mMc-dt","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=835"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/835\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":838,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/835\/revisions\/838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}