The Blessing of Sleep
I will bless the Lord who guides me; even at night my heart instructs me. – Psalm 16:7 (NLT)
Something good is happening at night. Something is happening at night. So please, go ahead and fall asleep.
Do you struggle with falling asleep? Do you feel like you should be doing more with your life? Does sleep feel like an extra nonsense? Because while sleeping you don’t have anyone saying “good job” and you have nothing to accomplish which you can put on your resume or take off your to-do list.
Your body and soul are desperate for sleep. But to sleep means you are not in control.
It is a brave decision to choose sleep. Sleep is a declaration of trust. It is admitting you are not God, who never sleeps, and that is good news.
Maybe this declaration of trust is what gets in the way of this brave decision.
When you choose sleep, you are choosing to rest in your limitations as a created being. This pace of life that “everyone else appears” to be running on is not sustainable. Sleep is not like recharging your phone. You are not a machine needing to recharge.
Remember sleep is a declaration of trust. I may be calling out a trust issue here.
Sleep is vulnerable. Maybe that is why you resist it.
When you vulnerably set yourself to sleep, when you give in to your human limitations, this is when the crazy thoughts come. The failures of the day. The life crisis you are managing through right now. Your overthinking. Your doubts about God. All of the thoughts that your busyness distracts you from. You cannot protect yourself from bad dreams or mosquitos or whatever that irritates you. We all succumb to the mercy of the night…vulnerable.
So do you get back on your phone or turn the TV on hoping to tire yourself to sleep? Except there is this thing about blue light disturbing sleep.
Do not be afraid to go to sleep. Consider it an act of defiance.
“Rest is an act of defiance, and it cannot be predicated on apology. It’s the audacity to face the demands of this world and proclaim, we will not be owned.” – Cole Arthur Riley, This Here Flesh, p. 157
You and I are not owned by this false expectation of “crazy busyness” to find our enoughness. We sleep as a declaration of trust in a Savior who is not us.
Besides, amazing things happen through the night.
Our body heals overnight. Through sleep our brains, muscles, and hormones function better. Our cells are repaired. Our energy is conserved. We dream. We fight illness. We form, sort, and strengthen memories from our days. We also learn in our sleep.
There are things in our spiritual lives, too, that grow from sleep. You know this is true when you wake up with that new business idea or you wake up with a song that I believe God was singing over you throughout the night.
But each day the Lord pours his unfailing love upon me, and through each night I sing his songs, praying to God who gives me life. – Psalm 42:8 (NLT)
This is all happening without our knowledge, consent or control. God designed the universe—and our bodies themselves—so that each day we begin with the fact that we do not have to prove our worth to the world. Worthiness is our birthright. We begin our day in our worth because God prepared us for the day.
We know that Jesus slept during his time here on earth. Jesus slept because he needed to and because he had nothing to prove.
Brave decisions always require vulnerability. I choose to lean into the vulnerability of a good night’s sleep.
Doesn’t that sound good? And desirable?
Questions for Reflection:
- Have you ever pondered what a gift God has given us through sleep?
- Do you recall the best night of sleep you ever had? If so, thank God for the valuable rest you received from it.
