To Sleep from Faith

Yesterday we talked at length about ‘to eat from faith’. There is another simple act, familiar and essential to us all, in which the principle of faith can have a decisive influence: the act of sleeping. In Psalm 127:2 the psalmist says:

“It is vain for you to rise up early, To sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows; for so He [God] gives His beloved sleep.”

Through the continual, restless pursuit of wealth and pleasure, millions today are losing the ability to enjoy either food or sleep. Who can count the millions of pain killers, digestive tablets and sleeping tablets that are consumed each day throughout the Western world – and often with so little effect? But to God’s believing children, to those whose lives are based on faith in God, sleep comes as a gift of God’s love, a provision of His daily mercy, “for so He gives His beloved sleep.”

Someone has said, “Money can buy medicine, but not health; a bed, but not sleep.” It is not only very costly, but it is also very injurious to our bodies to shut God out of our daily living.

The psalmist David was a man whose way led through many troubles and dangers, but in the midst of them all his faith in God sustained him and gave him the assurance of sweet, untroubled sleep. Listen to David’s own testimony of what prayer and faith could do for him.

“I cried to the Lord with my voice, And He heard me from His holy hill. I lay down and slept; I awoke, for the Lord sustained me.” (Ps. 3:4-5)

“I will both lie down in peace, and sleep; for You alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.” (Ps. 4:8)

This same blessed assurance of calm, untroubled sleep at the close of each day is still available to those who will enter into all the provisions of God’s love and mercy contained in that simple phrase: “The just shall live by faith.”

(*Paraphrased from Psalm 91.)