The Love of Sleep
I’ve always been the type of person who loves sleeping in – tapping the snooze button once or twice or nine times until I become restless enough to get up and start my day. Because of this, I never considered carving out early morning time to read my Bible and pray. That led to me fitting this in whenever it was convenient; many times, that was in the evening when I was less than awake enough to make the most of it.
After becoming a father with nights of intermittent sleep kicked in, fitting this in got to be very challenging, to a point where days would pass without me making any time for reading or prayer. My faith suffered as a result, which led to a meager fight against sin. I always knew that neglecting to spend time with the Lord each day would result in this, but I never made a lasting attempt to fix it. When I tried, I tried all on my own; that is to say I never consistently asked the Lord for His help.
The Lord allowed me to live like this for quite a while, until one day He convicted me in a way that called me to immediate action. The clouds didn’t part and light didn’t shine down, but I was given a very clear realization that I was really good at making time for nearly everything else in my life other than God. That was embarrassing and saddening at the same time. I place a high value on coming through on my word. When someone asks for my help with something, I will do whatever it takes to help them. Likewise, if I make a promise to someone, I make sure to come through on it. But what has anyone done for me that compares to what Christ has done? And who has the authority to demand my time and attention other than God? No one deserves this more than God and no one will bless me for doing so like Him.
It was a couple years ago when I realized this, which led to me waking up at 6am to read and pray. I started out by doing this 5-6 days a week in an attempt to ease myself into it, but soon realized that not doing it 7 days a week was baseless and unhelpful. I can’t say that I’ve held to 7 days a week without fail, because there were many days when I hit the snooze button and neglected to get up. When I did, Jesus’ words to his disciples convicted me, “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak”. The routine stuck, however, and I was blessed for it. That is, until I read George Müller’s autobiography and learned of his amazing level of faithfulness to God and the resultant effects on his life. Müller was a Prussian man born in the early 19th century. He is famous for relying solely on the Lord for his income and the funds to build and operate five orphanages among other institutions.
Sprinkled throughout Müller’s story, he mentions asking the Lord to wake him at 5am so that he would have sufficient time to spend reading the Bible and praying before setting out for the day. He dedicates an entire chapter to this subject, but the first mention of it caused me to realize that one thing I had yet to do was to ask the Lord to wake me. That evening, I made this my prayer and asked the Lord to wake me at 5am. The next morning, my eyes opened exactly at that time. I was so amazed that I immediately praised the Lord, but not a minute later did I fall back asleep only to wake up at my usual 6am. I realized that I had only asked the Lord to wake me, not to give me the energy to actually get out of bed. The next night I asked for both and he granted my prayer. The following days were filled with some of the greatest times of communion with God that I had ever experienced. I couldn’t thank the Lord enough for His grace.
In saying all of this, I want to be honest and mention that even though I’ve had this experience and changed my routine, I’ve learned that I cannot rely on myself alone even for a single day. When I do, I fall back into my old practice of hitting the snooze button, which simply reminds me of the weakness of my flesh and correspondingly the strength of God.
I write this story with the hope that it encourages you to ask the Lord to do the same for you. Ask Him to reveal to you the balance of time you allocate to communion with Him versus to everything else. Know that the Holy Spirit is with you always, ready and willing to help you reprioritize your time to make much of God and less of yourself. Lastly, remember that even our Lord Jesus depended on early morning communion with God:
“And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed.”
If even our Lord Jesus needed daily communion with the Father, should we not do the same?
“Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit.”
“Draw near to God and he will draw near to you.”