What to do with a restless night...

I think a good place to start with any hurdle or "problem" is a little bit of humour. Sometimes I think, "How can I not laugh? If I don't laugh I might cry, or be angry, etc." Laughing is a lot more fun than the other responses. So what's making me laugh these days? Just some silly restless nights. But there's good news! There's something purposeful to do with a restless night and it all began with laughing for me.

It was 2 or 3 or 4 am, I've lost track, and I asked, "God why am I awake, again!?!" While the obvious reason that was Jace crying in the next room I thought there might be more to this question than what was on the surface. As I was rocking Jace in his room I got my laugh in and then I was reminded of the story of Samuel. You might remember Samuel as a little boy hearing what he thought was the voice of Eli calling out in the night. Only it wasn't Eli's voice... it was actually God. So to figure out my own dilemma of a now restless night I thought why not read the story again? Here's a couple of my thoughts so far.

The book of 1 Samuel begins saying that it was a time when people didn't hear from the Lord. God seemed to be "silent." That's easy to identify with right? I must admit God seems pretty silent most of the time to me. When God spoke Samuel didn't recognize the voice (or he rather "mis-recognized" the voice). I wonder how often does that not describe me? I think God is silent, then when He does speak I think it's something else (like Eli's voice... or Jace...) There was purpose for Jace waking me up. God simply wanted to spend time together. So often I've resisted the late night calling. Mostly for the obvious reason that at night we sleep. It's funny how I strive to hoard as much sleep at night as possible thinking that if I don't succeed tomorrow I will be tired. The funniest thing is, and perhaps you've noticed this for yourself, whether I get just a couple hours of sleep or 10+ I'm always tired. So my thought is night time is actually not for sleep but rather for rest. How are those different you might ask... Simple... if sleep doesn't leave me feeling rested, as you think it should, maybe rest can be found in another place as well. Now I'm sounding ridiculous aren't I? I'm not proposing that I'll give up sleeping (I love to sleep... and to defend my Sunday afternoon habit... lazyboy snoozes in front of a football game are the most restful!) My thought is that maybe sleep is not the only way to combat my tiredness. That night that I was describing before... when Jace woke me up... I had some incredible prayer time and in the morning I felt more rested than I had in a long time.

The other day someone stopped by the office advocating a greater level of "self-care"... spending more time on ourselves... watching TV, sleeping, on vacation, etc. He said that even Jesus himself did... however, he didn't really ever mention where in the Bible this is recorded. In fact I've heard this same argument over and over (from some of the most tired people I know) that rest is found in places of recreation and "self-care." I just want to share that I've found a better place of rest... toiling in prayer (had just written prayer but needed to add toiling because sometimes prayer can be a lot of work - more than passively leaving messages and requests on God's "answering machine").

So, Jace's late night alarms are now a little bit more welcome... not a lot... but a little. I encourage everyone to consider their late night alarms. Maybe it's not the voice of "Eli"... children... stresses... etc. God could just be trying to speak to us in this "silent" age and we're too distracted by our sleep.