Lullaby and Goodnight

We humans need sleep. We were placed here on Earth to live in a rhythm of daylight hours and nighttime hours. And, for most of us, daytime is for working and nighttime is for sleeping. Many studies have been performed on the role that sleeping plays in maintaining the health of our bodies and the activity of our brains. Without getting too technical, basically the end of the matter is that sleep is necessary. We need sleep to rest our muscles and to reboot our personal computers (our brains).

So, why is it that we sometimes have emotional baggage tied to feeling tired? It’s as though we are surprised that we are not endlessly energized and that working hard makes us tired. Do we think we should never feel depleted of energy? Our natural existence requires daily re-charging, so why do we periodically resent this reality?

I’m sure there are as many answers to those questions as there are people to ponder them. In my case, I like to remind myself to look at it from the other side, to consider the productive activities which have contributed to my being weary at the end of the day. This helps me see the purpose of sleep in an entirely different light.

I can embrace the tiredness as an evidence of good labor. I can receive with gratitude the hours of sleep that God grants, and I can believe there is wisdom in His plan of daily restoration. His mercies, indeed, are new every day.

When I rise each morning, He is there to enable me to “…do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly…” before Him, and to come honorably to the end of my strength at the end of the day. I recently came across this morning prayer attributed to Robert Louis Stevenson:

“The day returns and brings us the petty round of irritating concerns and duties. Help us to play the man, help us to perform them with laughter and kind faces, let cheerfulness abound with industry. Give us to go blithely on our business all this day, bring us to our resting beds weary and content and undishonored, and grant us in the end the gift of sleep.”

Until next week, fellow so-journer, embrace the rest He has ordained for you so that you can be about the Father’s business, willing to be spent….every day.