When thou liest down, thou shalt not be afraid: yea, thou shalt lie down, and thy sleep shall be sweet.
25 Be not afraid of sudden fear, neither of the desolation of the wicked, when it cometh.
26 For the LORD shall be thy confidence, and shall keep thy foot from being taken.
Are you being attacked by the enemy in your sleep or when you lay down to sleep?
Do worries possess your thoughts?
Are you being held hostage to fear in the night hours?
I will not get into a long discussion from the perspective of clinical or psychological fear. I want to deal specifically with fear that causes us not to sleep at night.
Perhaps when getting into bed we allow our minds to wander into some thought of pleasantness. All is well. There is perhaps a small smile on our face. All of a sudden, out of nowhere dread seems to permeate our whole being. Our imagination begins to go in to high gear. All we can see in our mind's eye is an impending danger. We can not move mentally forward. We become imprisoned by a single thought. Our mind races to rehearse a mental scenario repeatedly. We cannot stop this distressing process. Before we realize, many hours have passed and we have loss much needed rest and sleep.
Perhaps we have heard some bad news concerning a friend or loved one. Perhaps we are having some financial or health issues or issues with someone who have turned against us. The process is the same. We become imprisoned by a single thought that we rehearse in our minds repeatedly until fear possesses our total being.
It is enough to have genuine concern about an issue that consumes us, but night was made for resting and recuperating from the toils of the day. To be tormented in the night hours when we need rest, is against all things natural.
To toil at night when we need rest is against our health and well being.
This proverb says we should have sweet sleep!
What is sweet sleep?
For me sweet sleep is sleep without worry, fear, or stress. I awake feeling renewed and refreshed. I stretch off the night and began a new day ready for a new beginning, a new victory, a new and refreshed mind for anything I may encounter. Anything! It is a rebooting of my being, leaving the old unusable for yesterday, and to build on today for today.
We can't do that if we have been bogged down with stress and worry through the night.
The proverbial writer says, the LORD will be your confidence, which suggests we have lost confidence in what he says in his word.
Finding confidence in God's ability to protect and keep us, affects our sleep and how we think at night. God is our protection from everything. Our ability to trust that he has our best interest at heart is where our thoughts should rest.
The enemy of God adds to our mental discussion. We actually carry on a conversation with fear, rather that in prayer with God or meditating on the wisdom of the ages. Let us put away the practice of consulting with fear over God's word. Let’s grab a hold of confidence rather than casting away our confidence in the Lord.
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