Don't Lose Sleep

"Trust ye in the LORD for ever: for in the LORD JEHOVAH is everlasting strength:"  Isaiah 26:4 (KJV)


"So trust in the Lord (commit yourself to Him, lean on Him, hope confidently in Him) forever; for the Lord God is an everlasting Rock [the Rock of Ages]."  Isaiah 26:4 (AMP)

Surely I'm not the only one who lays awake at night trying to solve problems in my head...  I can't tell you how many times in the past I would literally lose half a night of sleep just because I kept thinking on different situations.  Most recently, one of the very things that I would lose sleep over was a few months ago when I was in a place where I really didn't want to play drums at church.  I would literally lay awake half the night on a Saturday night, worried that no drummers would show up the next day and I would have to play.  Of course, now I look back and I just shake my head.  All that worry for nothing.  All that lost sleep for nothing! With God's help, I've been able to play the drums decently, and so far anyway, I have not embarrassed myself at all- which was one of the things those sleepless nights were about.

When I click on the news pages right now, I'm taken to headlines about the bickering going on at Capitol Hill and if I really thought on it, I could totally see myself worrying about all that is going on there.  I could see many a heated discussion forming with various opinions, but you know what?  As I read about what is going on, all I can really do is pray about it.  Last night the President made an appeal to the American people to let our voices be heard, and I have to tell you, at this point, I don't think it's about having our voices heard at all.  It's about hearing the voice of God- and acting on what God would have us do for this country.

I am certain there are plenty of people losing sleep about what is going on in our country these days.  More than that, every day there are random things that come up and try to rob of us of our precious sleep.  Really- think of all those scenarios and situations that you really have no control over, yet you stay awake thinking on them and worrying about them.   All that does for us is... well, nothing.  We don't get our much needed sleep, and since we can't do anything about the problem anyway, coming up with any kind of solution is really a pointless activity.

So what do we do in those situations? We put our trust in God.  We put our trust in knowing that God knows what is going on- and we tell Him so.  At the end of June we had our family camping trip.  While we were gone on our vacation, we were anticipating an e-mail containing our new schedule for the dance season.  There was one night when we were in the middle of the woods, and I was lying awake fretting about that e-mail.  I was worried that we were going to get scheduled at a time or on a day that wouldn't work for us for a class or two.  And yet, that worry was completely pointless.  I was in the middle of the woods!  It would be days before I would get the e-mail containing our schedule, and THEN I would be able to deal with it.  Worrying about it and ruining our vacation because of it was completely pointless.  I finally realized that, and I had a chat with God.  I told Him that He knew our schedule, and that He wouldn't have allowed our classes to be placed on days when we'd indicated that we weren't available.

When all was said and done, the schedule worked out fine.  It needed a little tweaking, but the major worries I had were completely unfounded and were a non-issue.  That's how we need to approach these sleep-eating issues.  We need to follow the words of Isaiah and place our trust in God.  In all things!  Even better- look at that verse above!  We can trust in God FOREVER.  Not just today, not just about tomorrow or next week.  We can trust in God every single day of our lives. And honestly- for us Americans, anyway, should we need a reminder of that, all we need to do is look at a piece of our currency, and see the words "In God We Trust".  It seems to me that our government needs to be reminded of this and turn to the One who holds all the answers in the palm of His hand.  If we lean on God, HE will be our Rock and our Strength for each and every moment that we need Him to be there for.