Sleeeeeep!

What is sleep?

What is sleep?

Anyone who has ever suffered from insomnia is all to familiar with this question. After failing to sleep all night you go to work and here a coworker talking about going to sleep at 10 pm and you are like sleep, what is this sleep you speak of?

Stop sleeping and go to sleep before you fall asleep

Sleep can be one of those elusive things that you know you want but can’t seem to obtain, like a pet unicorn, or a phoenix. You’ve heard of them but you are pretty sure they don’t exist.

When I was a teenager I would go to my fathers to stay for the summer but it was difficult adjusting to my new reality of being part of a broken home. So I spent almost the entire summer spending the night at a friends house down the road. They were good Christian people and the welcomed me in and really helped me through some very turbulent years. When I re-surrendered my life to Christ the mother was able to tell before I said a word, literally, I walked into the house and she said, something is different. I had no idea how she knew but I was glad she did.

Anyway While staying at their house and trying to process everything, I found my self stressed out by the fact that not only did my Dad walk away from us, he also walked away from God. I was not new to this whole thing I knew what that meant. While wrestling with that, the enemy kept reminding me of the mistakes of my past telling me God couldn’t love me or use me. I knew it was a lie, but when you hear something a thousand times a day it can be hard to ignore. And when I didn’t think I could take much more I got a phone call from home. A pastor’s wife we had been praying for had died from her cancer.

The result, insomnia. I went from 8-12 hours of sleep a night to 2-3 hours of sleep a night. This lasted 1-2 weeks. I had become physically, emotionally and spiritually exhausted, which only added to my stress and created a downward spiral. One night i was tired of laying on the couch in silence and darkness with all the cares I just listed swirling around in my brain, so I got up went out to the kitchen and washed all the dishes. I dried them and put them away, and tried my best not to wake anyone up it was after all 3 am. When the family woke up they asked about the now clean kitchen and I told them for the first time I was having trouble sleeping. This led to many late night talks and eventually the return of the elusive sleep.

The Hebrew root word for sleep skb is found in the OT 203 times and again in various forms 260 times. Now sometimes the word is used to describe literal sleep other times to describe someone who is lazy, much in the same way we would say stop sleeping on the job, and other times it would be used in a figurative way as a way to say someone had died or was sick. And as you can read for yourself on the slide there are other ways the word was used.

What is important here is that we all acknowledge that sleep is important. Shoot even Jesus slept, even during some pretty interesting times and places. Sleep is a critical part of the human experience. They say a healthy nights sleep is between 6-8 hours. If we use the 8 hour mark as a guide than what we are saying is a person should try and sleep for 1/3 of the day. 24 hours in a day you sleep for 1/3 of that right. That means if you managed to sleep exactly 8 hours every night by the time you are 75 you will have slept 25 years 1/3 of your life. Now the reality sometimes we sleep 8 hours sometimes 12 and sometimes 4 or less but the bottom line is a large chunk of our lives is actually devoted to sleep. It is almost like our bodies need it or something.

Stop sleeping, so you can go to sleep before you fall asleep

A few years back I took a course on chaplaincy for the fire service. As part of that course I learned something very interesting. I learned that sleep actually helps us to process information and convert short term memories into long term memories. If you have ever watched someone sleep you are super creepy. Just kidding if you watch someone sleep you will notice when they hit REM sleep their eyes began to twitch back and forth under their eyelids. In fact that is what REM stands for Rapid Eye Movement. This is happening in part because the brain is actually sorting the event of the day. This is required to move short term memories into long term memories.

Without getting to technical this is part of the problem with those who have had a traumatic experience. Often one of the side effects of that trauma is insomnia. Because they are not sleeping the images and memories of the even remain in the short term memory as if it had just happened, which is part of the reason people who struggle with PTSD suffer from recurring images and even flashbacks. At least that is my understanding as it was explained to me. Part of the problem is because of lack of sleep they were never able to convert the memories from short term to long term, essentially putting it to bed, where they would then be able to recall the event at their choice rather than interruptive images and thoughts.

This is a pretty simplistic explanation and there is a lot more to it than that so please don’t go performing experiments on people, but there is a technique that is being used to help people who have witnessed traumatic events. They are asked to follow an item with their eyes. It could be the counsellors figure or a pen and to recall the event in as much detail as they can, recounting smells, sounds, images, everything. Now they move the object back and forth causing the person to look left and right rapidly as the recall the event simulating REM. In some cases this has helped boot up that process of converting short term memories into long term memories.

Now there is a risk of re-traumatizing a person so things like this should be left up to professionals, but it is interesting to see just how sleep can help us to process information.

Other studies have shown that prolonged stress can develop sleeping disorders, from not being able to sleep, to not being able to stay awake. Interestingly enough though, those same studies teach us one of the best stress management tools in our tool box is healthy sleep habits. Which explains why mothers with babies who do not sleep through the night are often stressed.

And it also explains why today the fifth and final stress management tool I want to give you as part of our Hanging by a Thread series is...

Sleeeeeep!

But the problem is, we all know that, what we don’t know is how can you sleep when sleep seems to be eluding you?

How can you develop healthy sleep patterns when you feel stressed out?

This is the question I want to try and answer today and to do that I want to read

Now while you are opening your bibles I want you to note how starts. It starts by giving us the historical context. This Psalm was written by David during the time he was running from his son Absalom. This story is found in . Basically what you need to know is David is not the same young boy who killed Goliath any more. He is nearing the end of his life and the end of his reign as King. The time has come for David to name a successor whom David will name as Solomon bore to him by Bathsheba. But David has another son Absalom who is determined to be king and is planning on taking it by force. As Absalom and his supporters approach the city word comes to David of the plan and the support. To save their lives and the city from destruction David calls for evacuation, and he and all his supporters left the city leaving just a few concubines to tend to the palace.

Interestingly enough Davids reign started as he fled for his life from Saul who’s family had been rejected by God and now it seems his reign will end much ion the same way. Do you think David was stressed at all? Do you think that maybe just maybe David might have a hard time sleeping at night out of fear he might be killed?

Well let’s read and find out.

Psalm 3 NLT

A psalm of David, regarding the time David fled from his son Absalom. 1 O Lord, I have so many enemies; so many are against me. 2 So many are saying, “God will never rescue him!” Interlude 3 But you, O Lord, are a shield around me; you are my glory, the one who holds my head high. 4 I cried out to the Lord, and he answered me from his holy mountain. Interlude 5 I lay down and slept, yet I woke up in safety, for the Lord was watching over me. 6 I am not afraid of ten thousand enemies who surround me on every side. 7 Arise, O Lord! Rescue me, my God! Slap all my enemies in the face! Shatter the teeth of the wicked! 8 Victory comes from you, O Lord. May you bless your people. Interlude

How can you develop healthy sleep patterns when you feel stressed out?

Find rest in the one who is watching over you

Me: I couldn’t decide what story to share with you today. There was the time my friend and I slept through the night even though there was a lunatic holding my pregnant sister at knife point down stairs or the time more recently when I went to sleep fully convinced I was going to not wake up in the morning, at least not here on earth. In the end I decided to go with the later story so if you want to hear more about the first one keep coming to church I am sure it will come up again sometime. A little over two years ago now at the peek of my anxiety a pain in my neck resulted in my head going completely numb. Already overcome with anxiety my mind began to go nuts thinking about the possibilities. Of course I did the worst thing possible I went online and typed in my symptoms. The first result was a popular web doctor type site which told me, quite accurately, I might add that what I was suffering from was most likely a stress or tension headache, but unsatisfied with that answer I continued to read down the list of possible causes which included tumours on my spine. I wasn’t long closing my computer after I read that. It took about 5 minutes for me to convince myself that I was dying. I told my wife if I was still alive in the morning I would make an appointment with the doctor. Then I went to sleep. I actually was able to sleep that night legitimately thinking my life on earth would end before I woke. How could I sleep you ask? Simple even though I was stressed to the max I knew in my heart whether I live or die is not up to me, my life and the life of my family was in Gods hands. Now just incase you haven’t figured it out I did not die. Also I am much better now thanks be to God and the doctor He provided for me and my family. I was in fact in stress response and my doctor knew it right away. I was having an anxiety attack and didn’t realize it, but thanks to my faith in God not only was I able to sleep that night, in the morning my headache was gone and I knew it was stress related. I still made the appointment because, and I can not stress this enough, if you are convinced you are going to die, go talk to a doctor, because whether you are or not you need to talk to someone.

We: What keeps us up at night is when we are afraid or worried about our problems and circumstances. We look at our problems and they seem so big and overwhelming and we become worried they will destroy us in someway. They become all we can focus on and it runs through our head all night long and even if we do fall asleep our dreams often will keep us from resting. Because what we often fail to remember is that no matter how big or bad our problems, our God who watches over us is bigger.

God : That is how David was able to sleep even though he was being hunted by his own son. Look at verse 5.

Psalm 3:5 NLT

5 I lay down and slept, yet I woke up in safety, for the Lord was watching over me.

David knew the God was on his side. He knew God was in control and if Absalom killed him God would still be in control and when he woke up from a good night sleep in safety, David acknowledged it was because of who was watching over him. The reason David could sleep was he let go of fear and anxiety and left the situation in the hands of God who is bigger than any problem or combination of problems. David is not the only example of this. Daniel slept in a den of hungry lions, Paul slept in Prison, Jesus slept in the bow of a small boat during a raging storm, Joseph slept in a prison for many years after being falsely accused, peter also slept in prison and was woken up by an angel, Jacob slept the night before meeting his brother who had vowed to kill him if he ever saw him again. What do all these stories teach us?

You: No matter how bad things might get you can always get a good nights sleep knowing that God is watching over you.

We: Even when we are stressed to the max may we find rest and sleep knowing that God is bigger than the boogie man.

Next Step

Listen to this song and tonight before you go to bed please stop and pray and remind yourself you can go to sleep knowing God is watching over you.