When I first started walking seriously with the Lord in college, I read some short book about Mother Theresa. I don’t remember the title, it was just the most extreme thing I could find in the ‘Religion’ section at Barnes & Noble (dangerous place to browse, BTW). The book said that she slept only four hours each day so that she could do the most in her life for God.
“Wow,” I thought, “that’s intense. I’m going to do that too!” And the commitment lasted one day, I think. Maybe not even that long. Pretty soon, it hit me. I WAS NOT MOTHER THERESA. That was so disappointing.
What gives?
But, seriously, what is the deal with sleep? I mean, it seems that the most productive, influential, and effective people don’t sleep much. (I love this post from Frugal Dad about his resolution to wake up early in 2009.) And yet, it’s always hard to drag my bones out of bed after that alarm clock goes off.
Even Jesus presents a complex picture. We read that He got up early in the morning (but only once or twice is that recorded). But, we also read that He took a nap in the middle of the day (there’s the example you were looking for!).
As I continued to struggle through sometimes sleeping too much, sometimes too little and feeling awful about both sides of the horse, I stumbled upon a great little section in a book by John Piper. (more about this below)
Is Patience a Fruit of the Spirit or Lots of Sleep?
There’s one great chapter in the book about the way that God has intertwined our physical and spiritual lives so that both depend upon one another. I’ll never forget the question he posed, ‘Is patience a fruit of the Spirit or the result of a good night’s rest?’
The answer…’YES.’
The truth is that no matter the amount, God designed humans to need innocent and neutral physical things-like food and exercise. Sleep is one of those innocent things that can be used to push us toward God or to seduce us away from Him. ‘Our situation is precarious.’ These innocent things pose great dangers as they can so easily become idols. And yet, we can’t avoid them. God created us to need sleep-whether a little or a lot.
But Why?
This is crazy weird. Why would God make super saints to need such a wasteful activity like sleep? I mean, if his disciples could all keep charged on a power nap every now and again, we could save this world in a jiffy! If Mother Theresa could have slept just 1 hour instead of 4, just think of all she could have accomplished. But God did not do that. He made, even the saintliest of saints to need sleep.
A large part of becoming ‘saintly’ is becoming humble. The need for sleep humbles us. Our eyes shut, the snoring starts, and the world keeps spinning. We wake up from doing nothing for hours and realize much has happened in the world apart from our doing. And it hits us: we are human.
Sleep reminds us that we are not God. As productive as we may be, we are limited by our frail physical bodies that need. some. sleep. God has united our bodies and our spirits in such a way that careless uses of our bodies will ordinarily (without God’s intervention) diminish our sights of they joy to be found in God.
So, what now?
- We’ve got to determine the amount of sleep we need to be alert and focused and able to enjoy God throughout our days. (And to realize that this amount will change over time through life’s stages)
- We’ve got to ask for grace in order to discipline ourselves toward providing space for that amount of sleep in our days.
- We’ve got to be aware of our frailty when we don’t get enough sleep-asking God to be merciful and gracious to us in those days to provide supernatural adrenaline to be patient and joyful and to ask for help and patience from others.
Resources
The book referenced here is: When I Don’t Desire God: How to Fight for Joy. It’s available here through a free download or if you want to put your hands on it, go here.
Thoughts? How do you battle with sleep in your life? How do you figure out how much you need and yet function when it’s not possible to get that much?
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
I used to sleep fewer hours and I’d be grouchy and impatient with my kids. After my third child came along I realized it was positive and healthy for me to get more rest and the results are that I am a better mom in the daytime! I do struggle with feelings of guilt (I’m still out of bed by 7:30 or 8:00) but others rise at 6 or 6:30 for example and I cannot compare. I work hard at simplifying my life and working diligently during the day so that I don’t feel I must stay up all hours to get my work done. I am not super woman, that is for sure, and while I sometimes envy my friends’ ability to wake early and get a lot done in dawn hours I don’t think I can do that at this season of life and still be a joyful mom, wife and friend.
I like this post because I never really take time to think about sleep and its connection to my daily relationship with God. I usually just think of it in terms of my ability to do day-to-day activities. However, I remember back in college feeling a little depressed one semester and found that I was sleeping many hours out of the day. I felt guilty for sleeping, and many days I didn’t know if I was sleeping because I was tired or just avoiding feelings and people in my life. However, after about a month or two of heavy sleeping I began to have nightmares or just very strange dreams that would be disturbing to me. These dreams would usually come on the days when I knew I wasn’t tired, but would lie in my bed until I fell asleep. I started realizing my need for sleep based on when I would have nightmares and eventually I began avoiding naps in order to avoid the dreams. The dreams eventually went away. It was a very interesting situation for me, but taught me so much about my personal sleep. I feel like God used these dreams to force me into reality, confront my feelings, and talk to those I love about what was going on in my life. This is the biggest sleep lesson I have learned so far!
Sleep is definetely a hard thing for me, I need a lot of rest due to my adrenal glands being completely wiped after college but sometimes it feels like I get too much sleep. The only thing that really seems to help is exercising on a regular basis, for some reason that helps my sleep be more restful and I don’t feel like I’m dragging myself through the day even with 8 hours of sleep.
A very thoughtful post, thanks!
Hi! I was surfing and found your blog post… nice! I love your blog.
Cheers! Sandra. R.