Scripture: Psalm 3:5 – “I lie down and sleep; I wake again, for the Lord sustains me.”
There is a saying used especially by the young which says, “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.” The saying goes back at least to a 1976 song by Warren Zevon, most famous for “Werewolves of London.” It is a cry of defiance against the weakness of the body, a call to persevere to get as much work (or play) done as possible. In a time when it is increasingly difficult to survive working less than forty hours a week, this motto may also be a statement of necessity rather than a flippant turn of phrase.
Of course, God never intended for us to work all the time and to wear ourselves out in toil. It is why God ordained the Sabbath for our benefit. Often, the Sabbath has been reduced only a time when one is supposed to go to Temple or Church to pray to receive some sort of forgiveness or salvation. To fail to do so would be to risk damnation. But Jesus said, “The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath.” The Sabbath does not exist so we can grovel to God or spout praises just to feed some sort of divine ego. We have the Sabbath as a chance to rest and refresh ourselves, to put all the work and responsibility and trouble we face into perspective.
However, sleep is not just a way to rest from our work, but also to quiet our minds. Psalm 3 talks about the situation of being surrounded by one’s enemies. The psalmist cries, “O Lord, how many are my foes! Many are rising against me; many are saying to me, ‘There is no help for you in God.’” These enemies may be physical, like an army taunting a city during a siege, but they can also be metaphorical, the pains and struggles which overwhelm us, the little voices in our heads that say that resistance is pointless and that not even God will save us. These voices, whether internal or external, push us down and keep us away from the refreshment of sleep and Sabbath.
But the psalmist speaks also of God’s deliverance, saying, “But you, O Lord, are a shield around me, my glory, and the one who lifts up my head,” and “I lie down and sleep; I wake again, for the Lord sustains me.” Sometimes, when we are so exhausted by all the work we must do or all the pain that we are experiencing, we forget that God created us to rest, to wait, to dream, and to find solace in just being. God lifts our minds when they are low and silences the unquiet voices that drive us to misery. When we can sleep on our troubles, we can wake to find a new day has dawned and that we are not alone no matter what the day has in store for us.
Prayer: Grant us, O Lord, the strength we need to face each day and the peace and rest we need to renew it. Amen.
Comentarios