Sleep

"At day's end I'm ready for sound sleep, For you, God, have put my life back together." ~ Psalms 4:8 from The Message

It's 2:29 EST, and sleep is desired but present circumstances compel me to be awake and pray. If you are like me, spiritual eagerness can often be eclipsed by sheer laziness. So this night I deny myself sleep on purpose. I use this blog to keep focused on the mission. Now I offer what may seem a contradiction: I need to sleep peacefully.

In many ways, sleep is surrender. It's yielding to fatigue or giving up worry. On the other hand, we all know what it means to resist sleep or lose sleep because of restless emotions. When the Psalmist David wrote the words above, he was encouraging himself in a time of distress. He was crying out to God to be heard. I wonder if it was 2 AM when he wrote it? I wonder if he was awake in the night pouring his heart out to God, incapable of surrendering His fretting to God? I don't know.

In the end, he concludes that peaceful sleep comes because of God. God, who makes him "dwell safely" (KJV) or as the Message puts it, "puts my life back together."

Like David I am saying, "God, take my side! Once, in a tight place, you gave me room; Now I'm in trouble again: grace me! hear me! ~Psalm 4:1b

I wonder who is reading this? Are you like me, in a "tight spot?" Wanting sleep but full of concern and distress? After we have petitioned God, may we collapse into peaceful sleep. Resting assured, He is capable and willing to put our lives back together.

sleepy,
john