Why Sleep?

All creatures sleep. Why? Why must we sleep?

Don’t get me wrong. I love good sleep.

Last night, my 13 year old son convinced me to join him in sleeping in the family room. Did I mention that the family room is not carpeted. It’s a wooden floor. Have you slept on a wooden floor before? I don’t recommend it. My son abandoned the sleeping on the cold wooden floor sometime in the middle of the night and went to his room to sleep on his warm comfy bed and left me on the cold wooden floor!

Needless to say, I did not sleep well. And to top it off, I am sore all over the place.

So I spent the good chunk of Monday napping…in my bed!

The sleep was so good.

Before the sleep, I was achy and my head was hazy. I was tired and irritable.

A good nap changed all that. It’s almost as if the sleep set the reset button. After the good sleep my body and mind was like, “Bring it on. Let’s do this thing!”

Why is that? Why do we need to sleep? Just think about all the stuff we could get done if we didn’t need to sleep.

Sleep was designed into all creatures from creation. God created us so with a rhythm. We rest, we work, we play. And we start again. And every seven days, we are to take a day of rest. It’s called the Sabbath.

God created the world with this rhythm.

Why, did God create us this way?

I think it’s a built in way to remind us that we are creatures. When we’re asleep, we are most vulnerable. There is nothing we can do to protect ourselves when we are asleep. We are completely vulnerable.

Sleep reminds us that we are creatures in need of a loving God.

Besides, I really like a good sleep.