How to snatch sleep back from insomnia. God’s got you… even through the night hours.

“Don’t you know he enjoys giving rest to those he loves?”

Psalm 127:2 MSG

It is estimated that sleep-related problems affect 50 to 70 million Americans of all ages and socioeconomic classes.

I would hope that not many Christians are included in those statistics. But in spite of Psalm 127’s assurances regarding God’s desire for us, we Christians do at times suffer our share of sleepless nights.

Why, when God says sleep is a personal gift to each of us, do we struggle receiving this gift? There may be several reasons, but worry and anxiety come immediately to mind.

I won’t belabor the chaos, questions, feelings of hopelessness and frustrations that presently abound; nor the anger and fear they have brought us. Who hasn’t recently spent time designated for sleep seeking answers to troubling questions, like: What about inflation? How expensive will gas be? Will there be war?

These weigh on our minds and souls and can cancel sleep. We don’t have answers to those questions. Yet there is a Scriptural prescription we can take – Matthew 6:25-34 where Jesus promises to meet the needs in our lives and personally take care of us.

Then there’s anxiety. Where worry focuses on specific questions, anxiety is a generalized feeling of nervousness about whatever lies ahead. It shares space and time in our minds with a sense of dread and helplessness. In other words, you don’t need to fear only the things that come to mind, but things you can’t even imagine!

The Scriptural prescription for this is Philippians 4:6,7 where we find that prayer is the cure for anxiety as we lay our lives out before God with thanksgiving for what we have been given. If (and when) we do this, we’re given God’s amazing peace which can conquer insomnia in every circumstance.

I have one more Biblical hint that just might help.

“The sleep of a laborer is sweet, whether they eat little or much,
but as for the rich, their abundance permits them no sleep.”

Ecclesiastes 5:12  NIV

 Maybe it’s time to look at abundance with a more skeptical attitude. How about de-stuffing’ your life. The more we have the more it makes demands on our time and attention. There is freedom in the ‘less is more’ philosophy of living and you very possibly will sleep better with less cluttering up your life and mind.

Let your good sleep be proof that you trust God’s care through the night!