Sunday - Sleepless night

Have you ever had a sleepless night? I had one recently... although typically I don't have these. I was reminded of the old claim that reading one's copy of the Bible is the fastest way to go to sleep if you've "tried everything else". Not that I had tried everything else, mind you - but I had tried hot tea, and a couple of other things.

I think it interesting that sleep-deprived friends and family members always seem to think that they are the first ones who discovered that "little-known fact" about the benefit of reading the scripture. Actually, the practice of reading scripture after we've discovered we cannot return to sleep is something that was done in the time of Queen Esther of the Old Testament! It seems that the king himself was suffering from the frustration of sleeplessness, and had the scriptures brought to him and read to him in the middle of the night.

"That night the king could not sleep; so he ordered the book of the chronicles, the record of his reign, to be brought in and read to him."

Esther 6:1 ~ ESV

Every parent with children, and maybe especially those parents with children who have special needs, have faced that kind of frustration with the sleeplessness that follows our awakening to care for our little loved ones. It is no better tolerated when we wake up for no good reason and find our sleep hindered than it is when we were awakened for an honorable reason (preschooler who needs consoling, infant who needs to be fed, or for welcoming an older teen or spouse coming in much delayed). You'd think that we'd initially have think to implement our idea of scripture reading, since we have noted that it seems to have an effect upon us.

The question I'd like to ask is this...
If the reading of the scriptures actually does bring restful sleep to us in those frustrated evenings or wee hours of the morning... whose idea do you suppose it was for us to think of and to read the scriptures? Ours - or HIS?

Don't you think it's quite possible that our seemingly random sleeplessness is not a misfortunate adversity but rather an appointed time of communication with the Lord of our lives? Could that sleepless hour (or two or three!), actually be God's calling out to us - wishing to fill us with HIS Words?

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