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Sometimes God does not wait for a boy to grow into a man before calling him.  Jeremiah was called while he was just a youth.  Mary and Joseph may have been of a marrying age in their day, but according to the standards of our day, they were just a couple of teenagers.  Another young one called by God was Samuel.  I Samuel 3:1 says, "Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the Lord under Eli."  In the still darkness of the night, Samuel heard a voice calling his name.  Twice this happened and each time he woke up Eli, only to be told to go back to bed.  When it happened a third time, Eli told the boy, "Go, lie down; and if He calls you, you shall say, 'Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.' "  Samuel did as he was told and when the Lord spoke, he did as Eli had told him to do.    

I wonder sometimes about our own being awakened when the place is thick with darkness and full of stillness.  Could it be that the One who brings us into sleep and then wakes us up in the morning sometimes calls us to come forth in the night for a  purpose that is only revealed to us if we dare to wake and listen?  Could it be that sometimes we are too quick to seek again sleep instead of pausing in the still darkness to seek God?  There have been times when I have been awaken from sleep and felt a need to get up and pray for someone.  I know from being attentive to the witness of others that it is not something which has only happened to me.  Who knows?  It may be the only way God can get the attention of some of us!     

Years and years ago I would keep a pad and pen by my bed so that I could write down notes from a dream, or words I had been seeking, or even some awareness of holy presence in the night.  It is a ritual I probably should once again embrace for as surely as God speaks to us through the ordinary things experienced by our conscious mind, He is likely to speak into the sub-conscious part of us; thereby,  waking us to some moment of holy presence, or divine revelation.  Maybe the writer of Ecclesiastes should have added to that third chapter, "...there is a time to sleep and a time to wake up..."