I love sleep.  In spite of my nagging sciatica and the initial annoyance of my breathing machine for sleep apnea, I can usually get to sleep quickly and stay asleep.  At the beginning of my senior years, however, I have started waking a few times during the night — surprisingly, not to go to the bathroom!

Our bodies are designed (yes, I said it) to take breaks at least once in a 24-hour cycle. Our muscles relax, our heart rate slows down and we dream — or not.  Of course, that late night meal puts the heart on overtime, sending needed blood to the stomach for third shift food digestion.

I think what I like best about sleep is that it provides a necessary respite from the physical and psychological rigors of the day.  Someone once said, “Blessed is the person who is too busy to worry in the daytime and too sleepy to worry at night.” Scottish author George MacDonald believed that sleep was God’s way of developing our spiritual journey, likening it to death, in which we shake free this mortal garment and deal with greater matters of heart and soul.

The Bible speaks of patriarchs and prophets who received messages from God while asleep or in a sleep-like trance.  Jesus, on the otherhand, used sleeping hours to catch up on news from home, conversing through the night with his heavenly Father. We see him sleeping most soundly in a boat while a storm is raging.

So is sleep relegated to the earthly realm?  Will it not be necessary on the other side? We’re taught that God doesn’t sleep because he’s got the whole world in his hands.  If he nods off, then catastrophes happen.  Wait, catastrophes do happen.  What’s up with that?  And if God did sleep, what would he dream about?  If he and Jesus talked all night, maybe he doesn’t have to sleep.

I think that the real issue is not whether God is asleep, but rather God IS sleep.  Sleep is synonymous with an eternal rest, eternity being a state of mind instead of a time frame.  Hebrews 4 identifies a Sabbath-rest for the people of God.  Not to press the point of a literal 6-day creation effort, but God rested from his labor; we are designed to rest from ours.

The Hebrews passage, however, goes beyond the concept of physical rest.  It speaks more of a spiritual rest, and it states that disobedience will interrupt that rest.  Sleep, then, has not only a physical application, but is symbolically representative of the dealings of the mind, an other-wordly existence.  Another unknown source said, “A conscience is like a baby.  It has to go to sleep before you can.”

If God does sleep, I’m glad he doesn’t snore.  Then none of us would get any sleep.