Sleep is not inactivity.
He gives His beloved sleep (Psalm 127:2).
It is normal to experience fatigue. As we expend energy on different activities, we need to rest in order to recover, and we need to sleep. Rest and sleep address tiredness and are essential to our physical and mental health. But we can get overtired because we are over-committed or anxious or take on too much. This is when problems arise, and we don’t have the energy we need to perform effectively. A good night’s sleep refreshes us physically and mentally and helps us do more efficiently all the things we do. But sleep is not inactivity: our brains are still working, and several processes are silently taking place while we rest. I want to explore how sleeping addresses tiredness, to illustrate some important spiritual lessons.
When we are asleep, our brains are sorting out the information we absorb throughout the day, and are controlling restorative processes. God wants us to enjoy orderly lives. Samuel had his circuit of ministry through which he judged Israel. David learnt to trust God through the discipline of being a shepherd, and God chose him to shepherd a nation. Ruth was hard-working, organised and peaceful. Esther carefully planned how she could protect her people. Women, and men too, have much to learn from the discipline and productivity of the “woman who fears the Lord” (Proverbs 31:10-31). Look at the life of Daniel and trace the orderliness of his diet and prayer life. In the New Testament, Paul outlines the character of elders and deacons. Their lives had to demonstrate self-control and orderliness in family life. Orderliness is the friend of peace, contentment and restfulness, and it redeems time!
Tiredness can be a problem for many Christians. A lack of organisation, carelessness and inconsistency creates stress and conflict, which can wear us down, making us overtired. But also obsession, stubbornness and refusal to share responsibilities can not only make us tired but weary those around us. To address these issues, we need to break down our responsibilities and activities, and review how we are spending our time. This is where the dreaded lists come in! Write down a list of all your commitments and the time and effort they require. Then assess and prayerfully review them. We may discover our time and effort are wasted on unimportant and unnecessary things. We may also find we have to learn to accept we can’t do everything, and make clear decisions about what God’s wants us to do and how best to do it. And we may need to be more inclusive towards those who can support us.
When my wife, June, was a little girl, her mum had a thrift box. You don’t see them so often these days. They were made of tin and had several compartments and slots in the lid for coins, with labels: gas, electricity, coal etc. They were used to put aside money for different bills when families had tight budgets, and money had to be used very carefully. On June’s mum’s thrift box, the first label was LM. One day June asked her mum, who had a large family, what LM meant. Her mum told her it stood for “Lord’s Money”. Every week she put aside money for different expenses. The first money she set aside was a sacrificial gift for the Lord’s work.
Time is one of the greatest resources we have, and how we use it has a tremendous impact on our lives. Its first use should be sacrificially devoted to the Lord, and a response to His invitation, “Come unto Me … I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). The first thing we need to do when we consider how to organise our lives is to ask, “Does the Lord have the first place?” This is where we discover a holy and peaceful balance in our lives.
