“While We Sleep…"
“In vain you rise
early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat, for he gives to those he loves
while they sleep” (Psalm 127:2).
Author Lauren Winner
was asked how we as followers of Jesus can be more counterculture. Her answer? “Get more sleep.”
Miss Winter admitted
the curious nature of her comment. "Surely one could come up with
something more other-directed, more sacrificial, less self-serving,” she wrote. Still, she reasoned, “a night of good sleep—a week, or month, or
year of good sleep—testifies to a countercultural embrace of sleep (that) bears witness
to values higher than ‘the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the desire
for other things.’”[1]
Israel’s poet anticipated
her thoughts: “In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat, for he
gives to those he loves while they sleep.”
There’s something
wonderfully significant about this psalm, something easily missed unless we
understand that Israel’s day began in the evening and not in the morning.
We begin our
day when the sun comes up. We leap out of bed, grab a cup of coffee, wolf down
an energy bar and rush out the door to begin our work. Only when our work is
done do we rest, and our work is never done. There’s always one more e-mail to answer, one more phone call to return, one
more errand to run.
Israel’s sequence of evening
and morning pictures the attitude we should embrace toward all our efforts: We
must begin with rest—rest in a God of infinite resources. When we awaken to begin our work,
we rise to join Him in a work in progress, for he does not slumber nor sleep.
It’s useless to drive
ourselves in anxious frenzy, the psalmist pleads, as if success depends on our
efforts. We must work hard and we must be faithful in all we do, but everything
depends upon God. He has been working throughout eternity to gain our
highest good. Thus in simple faith we rest “that He, who knows
and loves, will do the best.”
Maker of all, the
Lord,
And Ruler of the
height,
Who, robing day in
light, hast poured
Soft slumbers o’er
the night,
That to our limbs
the power
Of toil may be
renew’d,
And hearts be rais’d
that sink and cower,
And sorrows be
subdu’d.
—Saint Ambrose
