Do you find that you get your best and clearest thoughts when you're laying in bed

at night, on your back, in the dark, when the world is quiet?

For me, that's true.

But why is that?

What makes that moment especially suited for mental clarity and for spiritual clarity?

Today on Ask Pastor John, John Piper is in the studio again with us to explain how God speaks to us through our internal dialogue.

And we get there from looking at the great Psalm 16, obviously Pastor John's favorite chapter in the Old Testament, Psalm 16.

Great text, amazing text. And we're going to look at a verse that we typically don't focus on.

But we just read it in our Bible reading, and maybe you skipped over this verse. We want to go back and study it.

And it's a question from Zoe in Provo, Utah. Pastor John, hi, can you

tell me how to discern the instruction that our hearts receive in the night to ensure that this

is counsel from the Lord and not from other sources? I'm thinking of Psalm 16, verse 7. That text first

speaks of God speaking to us through his word, and then it says, in the night also,

my heart instructs me. How does our heart also instruct us beyond the Bible, particularly in

quiet and reflective times of laying in bed? What is a relationship between God's external

counsel to us through scripture

and this self-counsel? Can we even call it that? And should we seek after it?

Some 16, verse 7 says, just to get it clear again before our minds,

I bless the Lord who gives me counsel. In the night also, my heart instructs me. So how does

the heart instruct David at night? How does our heart at night instruct us?

So let me make a few comments about the wording of the verse and its context,

and then I'll give some illustrations from my own life about how I think this works today.

...