…”forces of culture insist we give up an hour of sleep here, or two hours there—the grinding schedules, the unnerving stock piles of e-mail in need of responses, the early-taught/early-learned push for more and more productivity.”
Thus, author and professor Lauren Winner concludes, “It’s not just that a countercultural embrace of sleep bears witness to values higher than ‘the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the desire for other things.’ A night of good sleep—a week, or month, or year of good sleep—also testifies to the basic Christian story of Creation. We are creatures, with bodies that are finite and contingent.” We are also bodies living within a culture generally terrified of aging, uncomfortable with death, and desperate for our accomplishments to distract us. “The unarguable demands that our bodies make for sleep are a good reminder that we are mere creatures,” Winner concludes. “It is God and God alone who ‘neither slumbers nor sleeps.”
As we approach Holy Week, it is good to remember , “The way toward the cross is one that will show both the Christian and a world of contrasting beliefs that we are all finite, fragile creatures in need of a guide, in need of sleep, in need of one who can bear far more than we are able. The cross will also show that the one we desperately need truly exists. While his friends slept, Jesus stepped closer toward betrayal and agony, going all the way to his death, so that one day he could wake us for good: “Wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you!”
Psalm 4:8: ” In peace I will lie down and sleep, for you alone, Lord, make me dwell in safety.”
Consider your sleep habits (or lack there of.) REST in the Lord!
God made the evening and the morning…… the first day. It BEGINS with a review at dusk of the recent day’s work and declaring it “good.” We are to lay it all before Him each evening…. the best and the worst of it all. He receives it all and redeems it, calling it “good”. Then we can lie down in peace and sleep, having had our spirits renewed, allowing God to restore our minds and bodies as we simply rest in Him. Awaking to the morning, we find ourselves given renewed strength, fresh mercies, and new hope with which to spend ourselves for His glory….. to arrive at dusk once more, ready to hand it all over to Him and enter into His rest again. This is God’s timing, His ordering of our lives, His joy in having us participate in His divine life.