TO CHEW ON: "I will both lie down in peace and sleep;
For You alone, O LORD, Make me dwell in safety." Psalm 4:8
Are you ever troubled with insomnia? I certainly am. I think perhaps David was too. For in this psalm he reminds himself (and us, the readers/listeners) that he should be able to sleep:
"Meditate within your heart on your bed and be still ...
I will both lie down in peace and sleep ..."
The Bible speaks of peaceful sleep coming as a result of:
- Doing a hard day's physical work - Ecclesiastes 5:12.
- Entrusting the final outcome of our work to God - Psalm 127:2
- Trusting God for general well-being and protection - Psalm 3:5; Proverbs 3:24 and our focus verse,Psalm 4:8.
- Trusting God in even extreme circumstances, like Jesus did in the storm-tossed boat (Mark 4:38) and Peter did in prison (Acts 12:6).
I would submit that often 'trust' is the secret to our ability to sleep well:
"... put your trust in the Lord ... For You alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety."
PRAYER: Dear God, it is so easy to take the responsibility for my life on my shoulders and with it a load of fear and anxiety that keep me awake. Help me to trust You to the extent that I can relax in sleep. Amen.
PSALM TO PRAY: Psalm 4
MORE: Insomniac prayers
One thing many of us do at night when we can't sleep is pray. (David mentions communication with God four times in this short psalm.)
I love how Donna Farley writes of nighttime prayers in her poem "The Geography of Prayer." Here is a sampling:
THE GEOGRAPHY OF PRAYER
my midnight wakeful prayers
the gift of insomnia
I hold a globe cradled in my hands
and the wave of prayer begins:
a slingshot drawn back to the west coast
then as if the daylight terminator reversed itself
sweeping eastward with mercy, healing,
over the homes of people I know
and people I don't...
....
But I can't be the only one who lies
awake nights like this.
Like lines of magnetic force
caressing the world I imagine prayers
emanating from the faithful
wrapping the world up like string
wound around the core of a baseball....
© 1999 by Donna Farley (Used with permission)
Read the entire peom here.
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Unless otherwise noted all Scripture quotations are taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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