Sleep

Psalm 127:2 NIV

In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat — for he grants sleep to those he loves.

Are You A Hard Worker?

The other day I was sitting in the sanctuary praying and I realized I was dreaming…literally REM dreaming.  I shook my head, closed my eyes again to pray and fell asleep once more with vivid dreaming.  A third time I started praying and tried a different tact, trying to pray for each person who came to my mind.  This worked for a while until I got distracted and started thinking about what I had to do.  I did not have what you might call a very spiritual experience.  For a while, the “power nap” was a popular concept.  Who doesn’t like the idea of in the middle of a work-day taking a break to snooze?  Doctors have recommended the practice but how many managers and supervisors want their workers sleeping on the job. The Bible doesn’t seem to be an enthusiastic supporter of naps!  How long will you lie there, you sluggard?  When will you get up from your sleep?  A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest — and poverty will come on you like a bandit and scarcity like an armed man. (Proverbs 6:9-11 NIV)  The sluggard buries his hand in the dish; he will not even bring it back to his mouth! (Proverbs 19:24 NIV)  That sounds like a power nap in the cafeteria.  I wonder how well that would go over at most work places!

Probably you are a hard worker and would never consider yourself a sluggard.  You get up early and start your day off with a cup of coffee or a shower to charge your batteries and then off you go.  Maybe you don’t like getting up and “getting off” but you do it because it is right and necessary.  There are plenty in the world who consider work the most noble of ventures and success the goal in life.  The Bible isn’t exactly against hard work and in fact it is celebrated in many places.  Yet there is a passage in the Psalms that provides critical insight into our work habits and God’s view of how we use our time.

Unless the Lord builds the house, its builders labor in vain.  Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchmen stand guard in vain. (Psalm 127:1 NIV)  The thought that all one’s effort could be a waste of time is rather disconcerting!  Who hasn’t felt though at one point or another like that?  What good is it to try so hard at something when it is bound to fail anyway or it won’t be appreciated or it won’t matter in the long run?  This verse creates an immense line of demarcation between two categories of work.  The first is work that is contained completely within the realm of human effort.  Whether it is the building of a great housing complex or the stacking of vegetables on the kitchen counter, it either is done in God or it isn’t.  If it isn’t, then it is work done in vain.  The term translated “vain” does not imply that it was done out of a desire to puff up oneself but rather that it was empty of purpose, without value.  Jesus expressed this idea in vivid fashion when He warned against storing up for yourself treasures on earth that moths and rust can wreck and thieves just take.  Stored up earthly treasures are vain in this sense, they are without reason or purpose.  They are “empty” possessions.  The same can be true of work.  If God is not behind it and not in agreement with it, the work, whatever it might be gets gobbled up and becomes worthless.  This of course is not logical and perhaps not even reasonable to most.  Why does every work have to go through God?  Were computers developed by those holding prayer meetings?  Did the ones who put together the internet have their Bibles open as they worked?  Plenty of great things have been done by those who did not care one bit what God thought of their efforts.

Yet we do know that the marvelous invention of the phonograph became obsolete when eight tracks were developed.  Cell phones make landlines a dinosaur and whoever thought of rotary dialing is not celebrated today.  Those who worked so hard on their movies find that they are eventually forgotten and ignored.  Does anyone care who invented the wheel or started the first fire by rubbing sticks together?  All work, regardless of how great we might think it is today will be buried in time and no one will give it a funeral.  Only God can keep alive the memory of work that is done and make it as meaningful and important today as it was ten thousand years ago.  However, we see work started and completed without any thought given whatsoever to how God views its value or thinks of the effort.  Solomon used the term “vanity of vanities” to describe so much of how we spend our time.  At the top of his list of vanity of vanities would be our attempt to get done what is not inspired or empowered by God.

If it seems from these comments that God is not in favor of hard work or creative thought, but that is not the case.  Our Lord wants us to work.  It must though be done in the right way and for the right reasons.  Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. (Colossians 3:23-24 NIV)  We see work assigned by God all through the Bible.  Whether it was Bezalel designing and putting together the Ark of the Covenant or Paul sewing tents, work is honored by God.  Of course you can make a good living doing all sorts of work and even be celebrated by your supervisors or the public at large for what you have done but it will in the end be forgotten and fall apart if God is not in it.  Our Lord promises you an inheritance that will last as long as He does if you work for Him.  Everything else you do will be devoured by time and lost.

There is a more practical reason for doing your work through God.  It comes from the next verse in the Psalm we quoted earlier.  In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat — for he grants sleep to those he loves. (Psalm 127:2 NIV)  This verse has a wealth of insight to it that some translations do not make clear.  It is worthless, the verse insists, for us to get up early and stay up late trying to get things done that God has no interest in us doing.  The Hebrew, which is translated by some English versions as staying up late toiling for food to eat more literally describes staying up late and putting off eating the bread your hard and wearisome work has produced.  This is work generated by worldly cares, by concerns that are produced in those who are disconnected from God.  The more we work without Christ empowering and inspiring it, the less pleasure it brings and the more burdensome it becomes.

More than that though is the promise this verse provides us.  The NIV translation has a footnote in this verse that brings clarity to it.  The promise is not that our Lord rewards those who live in Him with sleep.  It is that He gives to His beloved ones in sleep.  The New American Standard Version translates this phrase, “For He gives to His beloved even in his sleep.”   The Grammar in this little phrase is tricky but certain.  Sleep is a powerful mechanism by which the Lord pours Himself Into you.  There are instances in Scripture documenting the way God has spoken to His people while they were sleeping including Jacob in the Old Testament when he was running from his brother in fear of his life and in the New Testament Joseph who was engaged to Mary the mother of Jesus providing for him comfort and reassurance that Mary had done no wrong in becoming pregnant. And then there is the example of Daniel who as he slept was shown by the Lord the content of King Nebuchadnezzar’s dream and how to interpret it.  God wants His people to sleep because of what He can do in them when they sleep.  It is not just that we physically need to rest.  In sleep God can get at the places where sin has done its most damage, in the deep parts of the heart or mind if you will, and comfort us and encourage us and strengthen us.  Just some sleep and the pain we felt before over a loss, a tragic event, an insult or a failure can be healed and we feel it when we awaken.

Do not just go to sleep.  Prepare yourself for God to work in you when you sleep.  Pray and get ready.  Tell God what you think you need before you fall asleep.  Talk to Him about what is bothering you.  Pray with someone else, if you have that person, just before bed.  Who knows what God might do for you and in you through the praying of someone who loves you?  Sleep is when God blesses us with some of His greatest comfort and insight.  What you could not grasp before you slept, with Christ working in you as you sleep, it can come to you as easily as holding a feather in your hand.  The world and all the pressures it can bring to bear upon you can wait a while as you meet with God in the depths of your heart.  Did you know that you can pray even while you are sleeping?  You can but you must quiet your heart in tender worship beforehand to make it ready to meet with Him there.  Try an experiment this week.  Just before you go to sleep, read a little bit of scripture or quote some to yourself and then pray quietly.  See what the Holy Spirit does in you as you rest in Christ.

Unharried

The average modern Christian lives chaotically.  She goes from one activity to another, accomplishing countless chores and feeling the weight of ten thousand demands without a shred of the peace and contentment Jesus possessed as He went about His Father's business.  Jesus did not separate what He did from what His Father was doing through Him.  The reason is that He refused to disengage Himself from the Father relationally or psychologically.  It was not theological fluff when Christ said that He and the Father were one.  Our Lord worked at this oneness and developed it so that it was habitual.  His times on the mountain established the oneness but so did His turning inward to the Father as He ate, talked with the disciples and the Pharisees, sat on the well in a Samaritan village and strolled along the edge of the lake.  He kept His mind aligned with the Father wherever He was and refused to let the lusts of the world disrupt that connection.  There are two temptations of Satan that knock us off our block.  We want what isn't ours and we don't want what God bestows.  The struggle in our head is a violent one.  Do we believe that our Lord loves us absolutely and that His will for us is perfect and good?  When we question those two axioms of scripture we lose our bearing with God and strike out on our own.  At that point we begin to operate as the Israelites in the time of the Judges, "everyone did as he saw fit."  If you want the peace that "passes understanding", then you must doggedly remain aligned with the same God who provides that peace.  Stay attached to the Lord at every level and at all costs.  Habitually thank the Lord for what you have and what you encounter at the moment, whether it seems good or bad to you.  The gratitude of the saint is her greatest defense against depression, anxiety and conflict.

Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful.     Colossians 3:15 NIV

Thought Provoking

How much thought do you give to God...clear concentrated thought?  We think about dinner, we think about broken relationships, we think about our finances and conversations we have had, movies we watched and plans that we have made but do we think about God?  We think about the arguments we have had, the disappointments we have faced, the level of affection others have for us, how we look and what new purchases we will make but is our mind on God?  The atheist claims she never thinks about God and the Christian makes much of her loyalty to Him but have we become more like the atheist than the believer when it comes to how our mind operates?  What good is it really to be Christian if your mind is not engaged with the mind of your Savior?    Nothing is more absurd than having all the thoughts of God at your disposal and living within the poverty of your own understanding.  We would feel badly for the poor fool who goes begging for scraps of food when he has been blessed with a full and abundant bank account.  God has joined His mind to yours when you are born again and all the wisdom of heaven is at your disposal if you would just begin to think with Him.  It is not easy to set your mind on God.  We are like little children; so easily distracted by every flitting thought that passes through the mind.  Yet with just a little bit of effort, we can think with God on every matter we face.  He can comfort us and encourage us and guide us at every minute of each day.  It takes faith to believe that when you turn your thoughts to God, He is with you in it and ready to organize your thinking.   Whisper your fears to Him, ask Him for help with the decision you need to make, give Him the sorrow you possess, comment on what you see and how it affects you.    There are boundless opportunities to let the Lord in on your thoughts but you must open the door for Him to enter there.  Take a moment to tell God you know He is a part of your mind and that you welcome His help right now.  Just begin to think about Him when it comes to you and soon enough you will find you are thinking about and with God more than you imagined possible.

Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.  For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.  Colossians 3:2-3 NIV

Obedience—The Great Uncovering Step 3

Romans 3:20 NIV

Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin.

Do You Recognize The Source Of Your Longings?

When you get married, most just assume that someday they will have children.  You may want to give yourselves some time to enjoy being newlyweds but most plan on eventually having kids.  We were like most couples in that way.  In fact before we got married, we had already picked out our first daughter’s name.  So when after eight years of being married and six years trying our best to become parents, we were flabbergasted.  In fact we became a bit desperate in our praying when it seemed we might not be able to have children.  I used to watch other people my age holding hands with their kids, pushing their babies along in baby strollers, playing catch at the park, buying their children toys at Christmas and envying them.  Sometimes I could hardly stand to watch young families because I so badly wanted what they had.  It was painful getting family Christmas cards from others with the happy smiles and blissful joy they seemed to have.  Now of course I know how rough it is to get families to all smile together and how difficult parenting is.  But back then, all I could see was the upside of having children and it didn’t seem fair that all these people could have kids and my wife and I couldn’t.  I was like the Grinch…I hated birth announcements and did not want to hear about the accomplishments and milestones of my friends’ kids.  I lusted after their lives…their happy, fun and exciting parent lives.

Nothing rots human personality like envy.  It is perhaps the most destructive force we face.  Envy has led to world wars, murders, suicides and ruined homes.  Nearly every conflict has its root in some form of envy.  Many times longstanding friendships, family relationships and marriages come apart due to some form of envy.  Envy has led to insurmountable debts, broken marriages, fractured families, ruined careers and self-loathing.  It led to the first murder and it will be the cause of the last battle on earth.  Envy led to Satan’s downfall and many billions of downfalls thereafter.  Is it any wonder that the Lord finished His Ten Commandments with a prohibition against practical envy?  "You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor." (Exodus 20:17 NIV)

If there was anyone who seemingly had no reason being envious, it would seem to have been Jacob, the founder of the nation Israel. There is not a much greater honor than having an entire nation named after you.  That is what happened with Israel, better known as Jacob.  How many of us have ever had a city or a street named for us?  Israel, better known as Jacob had the great privilege of being spoken of by God before he was born.  When his mother feared that something terrible was happening in her womb, the Lord reassured her that all was well; she simply had twins, fighting twins albeit.  The Lord said to her, "Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you will be separated; one people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger." (Genesis 25:23 NIV)  The younger was Jacob and his mother was told by God what would come of his life.  As the brothers grew to adulthood, each parent chose one of them as the favorite son.  Jacob’s mother Rebekah loved him the most; his father Isaac loved the older twin Esau best.  The boys grew up, and Esau became a skillful hunter, a man of the open country, while Jacob was a quiet man, staying among the tents.  Isaac, who had a taste for wild game, loved Esau, but Rebekah loved Jacob. (Genesis 25:27-28 NIV)  What this parental favoritism did to the personality of each of the twins we cannot say with certainty but we do know that Jacob envied his brother Esau’s place in the family; coveted in fact what belonged to him, specifically his birthright.

One day Jacob’s older brother Esau came back to camp famished after an unsuccessful hunting trip.  Jacob famously had a pot of stew on the fire and Esau craved some.  Jacob, who clearly had been thinking often of his desire to change places with Esau struck a deal with his brother.  He (Esau) said to Jacob, "Quick, let me have some of that red stew! I'm famished!" (That is why he was also called Edom.)  Jacob replied, "First sell me your birthright."  "Look, I am about to die," Esau said. "What good is the birthright to me?"  But Jacob said, "Swear to me first." So he swore an oath to him, selling his birthright to Jacob. (Genesis 25:30-33 NIV)  This was indeed a strange transaction yet both sides were apparently quite happy with the trade.  Much is made of Esau’s disregard for his birthright as oldest son but rarely is the biting desire of Jacob to have his brother’s birthright explored.  As we learned earlier of David’s father issues, we see a similar situation here.  Jacob was the lesser son to his father also.  Jacob in his deep seated feelings of rejection and disconnect from his dad, perhaps hoped he could by getting his brother’s birthright erase some of the longstanding pain he felt about his place in the family.

One of the more misunderstood commands of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount is the famous directive on sexual purity.  "You have heard that it was said, 'Do not commit adultery.'  But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. (Matthew 5:27-29 NIV)  This mandate turns on the word “adultery”.  It specifically is a command on marriage vows.  Adultery is the sexual relationship of a married person with someone with whom he or she is not married.  The reverse is also adultery; a single person having a sexual relationship with a married person is also committing adultery.  Adultery is not “sexual immorality” which is any sexual relationship outside of marriage; adultery is a subset of sexual immorality, it is the sin of sexually breaking marriage vows.

What we have here in the Sermon on the Mount is a stern command to not desire sexually someone who by God’s law cannot be yours.  If you are married, or someone else you notice is married, sexual looking is equivalent to adultery.  Jesus has marvelously woven together the seventh command to not commit adultery with the tenth command to not covet what belongs to another person into one very practical order.  Now this is strange perhaps to suggest and may seem even blasphemous but this part of the Sermon on the Mount is not a prohibition against single people sexually looking at other single people.  You may argue that any form of sexual looking is wrong and cite other parts of the Bible to make your point that it is wrong but sexual looking among single people is not the concern of Jesus here.  He is crushing in this stunning connection of lust and adultery the universal practice of wanting something someone else has.

It is typical of children to crave another child’s toy, even to the point of ripping it from her hand. We all have done it; most of us have watched it happen.  Our dog wants our cat’s food and the cat takes the dog’s food.  When adults and teens let their minds feast on another man’s food, it becomes a banquet from hell.  Jacob made his trade with Esau and got his brother’s right as first-born but he still had to have more.  That is the problem with craving.  It can only be stopped by the strong hand of God.  Jacob did not get what he hoped to have in his trade.  His father didn’t like him any more than before; he was still the lesser son.  When Isaac died and Jacob finally got his father’s inheritance, it no longer mattered to him because he was already rich.  The worst part of the trade though was that it fed an insatiable desire to completely usurp his brother’s place in the family and it was Jacob’s mother who found a way to try and gain that lust desire.  When his father Isaac wanted to pass along a special blessing to Esau, Jacob’s mother worked out a plan where Jacob was able to trick his father into giving it to him.  Both his father and his brother Esau were devastated by the deception.  His father shook with rage when he discovered what Jacob had done; Esau’s fury at his brother’s actions turned to thoughts of murder. He said to himself, "The days of mourning for my father are near; then I will kill my brother Jacob." (Genesis 27:41 NIV) Jacob fled his home to escape his brother’s wrath and perhaps even his father’s disgust with him and wound up more than a hundred miles away at the home of his mother’s brother, never to see his beloved mother ever again.

Here is the consequence of Jacob’s coveting.   Jacob wound up essentially being a slave to his uncle for twenty years.  If he had let God work everything out instead of taking matters into his own hands, he could have gone to his uncle with his father’s blessing and with the help of his father’s riches, gained his wife Rachel instantly.  Instead, since Jacob was a fugitive and thus powerless, Laban his uncle took advantage of Jacob and forced him not only to work seven years to gain Laban’s daughter Rachel as a bride but forced him to marry also his other daughter Leah whom he did not want.  This cost him another seven years of forced labor.  He spent fourteen years paying for his covetous desires!  What is worse is that his wives, because of their jealousy of each other pushed Jacob to take on each of their servants as wives too.  Rather than build his family upon the foundation of love and loyalty, it began as a civil war and never stopped being a civil war.  His wives fought the rest of their lives for supremacy in the home not just for themselves but also for their children.  Coveting is passed along to the next generation.  It is a ravenous beast that cannot be satiated without divine intervention.  Covet once what isn’t yours and you will find yourself consumed by poisonous desires unless you let God work His way through you and free your mind of satanic longings.

Remember the first and most destructive temptation is the one to grab for what belongs to someone else.  We can follow our lust like Adam and Eve and just take it like they did the forbidden fruit or because we are afraid of acting upon our impulses, crave it until we are poisoned by the unmet desire.  Jacob lusted for his brother’s blessing because he didn’t think he could ever have his father’s love.  Could it be the same for us?  Is there something we want too much because we still bear a wound that has never healed?  Have we let Satan get in our head and think God is too small to make things right for us?  Are we afraid God is unable to fix what is wrong in us so we look for something else other than God to fix our brokenness?

There is a seldom discussed way God heals the broken parts of our unconscious world.  He does it by thanksgiving.  Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. (Colossians 3:15-16 NIV) These are not two disconnected thoughts.  The word translated “And” puts them together and makes them one linked whole.  You gain the peace of Christ when you are thankful.  Be thankful and the deep places of pain and hurt and broken dreams and lost hopes are healed by Christ peace.  Where no one can touch the wounds…not a psychologist nor a master teacher…Christ can touch it and he can heal it.  His peace passes into us when we are thankful for what He gives us.  When we look about and think “thank you Lord” for each part of our day, for every experience we encounter, the peace of Christ has more freedom to move about in our unconscious self and take out the poison that kills our happiness.  A thankful mind does not have room to lust after others or crave the things others have.  A thankful mind is a joyful mind.  Satan cannot jump the wall of a mind that is thankful to Christ for what He has done.