Practical Living

Practical Living

Living faithfully in a culture skeptical or openly hostile toward Jesus Christ requires anchoring daily habits in Scripture across both the Old and New Testaments. The following 21 practices translate biblical theology into concrete, real-world habits for physical stewardship, relational witness, spiritual resilience, and endurance under pressure.

Hebrews 11:1 NIV - Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. 

Day 284: Sleep Regulation

Psalm 127:2 NASB

It is futile for you to rise up early, To stay up late, To eat the bread of painful labor; This is how He gives to His beloved sleep.

Psalm 4:8 NASB
In peace I will both lie down and sleep, For You alone, Lord, have me dwell in safety.

         Practical living is probably the hardest process of learning to live out our faith. If you are anything like me and the season of life I am in, sleep is one of the most difficult things to master. Your brain does not shut down, or if it does it is out of pure exhaustion, even your dreams can make you feel overworked and/or you wake up with a thousand tabs already opened from where yesterday ended. This is where these scriptures must anchor us as we shut down from our days.

         The reality of Psalm 127 is hard hitting. Futility is what we practically get if we do not choose to sleep. Yes, there are times when you must do what is necessary, trust me, I get it! Remember, I am a single father of two daughters, running a 5th grade classroom, coaching a middle school archery team, along with the hundred other hats I wear daily, so I understand the excuses and I can pile them up a mile high! But the scripture here is telling us that it is a bread of painful labor… but then it says this is how He gives us His BELOVED sleep, wait did we miss something?

Psalm 127:1 NASB

Unless the Lord builds a house, They who build it labor in vain; Unless the Lord guards a city, The watchman stays awake in vain.

Yeah, we missed something! Context is always the most important part. Jesus is our foundation of rest. Sleep is our physical embodiment of truly accepting the grace of Jesus Christ to hold everything together as it takes faith to close our eyes and trust the God of the universe for eight hours. Sleep can be considered an act of active confession of our human limitations. There is so much more to the act of sleep than we realize is there!

         So how does the Lord grant His beloved sleep? Through our recognition of our own limitations. Jesus explicitly modeled this for us!

Mark 4:37-40 NASB

And a fierce gale of wind developed, and the waves were breaking over the boat so much that the boat was already filling with water. And yet Jesus Himself was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke Him and said to Him, “Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?” And He got up and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Hush, be still.” And the wind died down and it became perfectly calm. And He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith?”

Jesus was asleep during the storm! Talk about sovereign trust in the Father. Some of His disciples were seasoned fishermen, therefore, they probably experienced significant weather events in the past and they were fearful. Jesus modeled what 1 Peter 5:7 tells us to do in casting all our anxieties on Him, because He cares for us. Sleep is rooted in our heavenly Father’s sovereignty. It is a beautiful gift we are given by Him, and it is an act of our faith to lay ourselves down to physically sleep. While this is an area of significant struggle in my own personal life, I am working through trusting the Lord more and more, and just shutting myself down to sleep. Truly seeking to rest in the grace of Jesus. Part of finding God’s 359˚ of beauty is found in our ability to sleep.

Dear Sovereign Father,

         Thank You for the precious gift of sleep. Remind us Lord that Your sovereign grace can not be undone! It has existed since before creation and You have led us to rest in You since the beginning. Let us not work ourselves into a painful labor, but learn to trust You in all things, especially the area of sleep. Jesus, forgive us for making our lives so full that we have rejected the gift of sleep. Lord, we know You are on guard for us, and that You are building our lives. We thank You for all that we have. May we rest and sleep in the acknowledgement of You as a work of faith in Your promises tonight. In Jesus Christ’s sovereign grace we seek to praise You for everything and honor Your word by sleeping well tonight, amen.