Sunday Reflection: He Gives to his Beloved

It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep. – Psalm 127:2

I got to sleep in a few times this week. For me, that means sleeping until almost 7. The changes and chances of life and age mean that I will probably never be able to sleep until noon, or nine, or eight thirty ever again. But, at least I don’t wake up every night at 3am, as I did automatically for practically a whole decade.

When you’re in the middle of babies and not sleeping, it becomes easy to imagine that God isn’t very good, that he is, in fact, out to get you. Sleep becomes something that you live without, your body and mind becoming accustomed to functioning with only a portion of the sleep that you really need. And the lack of sleep, and the usualness of that state wear down the spiritual sensibilities. God may be good, but is he really? Who even knows because there you are, up again with somebody crying.

It’s so interesting that this verse is in the Psalm of Ascents, that you would have been saying or singing these words as you ascended up towards the temple, coming as reasonably close to the presence of God as was bearable. And it is interesting that it was penned by Solomon who probably didn’t have his sleep interrupted by his children–surely he had servants for that–but must have often succumbed to the midnight worry.

The psalm starts out with the builder of the house and the watcher on the wall. Their work, unless it is established by the Lord, is vanity. The one plans, and builds, and has to take care not to make a mistake. He will wake up in the middle of the night and sit up appalled, suddenly aware that all his calculations are off and he must go back and begin again, because he forgot something essential. He may even rise up and light a lamp and try, in the middle of the night, to remedy the problem. When he goes out in the cool fresh dawn to look at his work, he probably sees that he was wrong, that everything is actually fine.

The watcher on the wall is meant to be up late, eyes wide open, scanning the horizon for trouble and grief. What if he tires over his work? What if he is weary and he wants to sit down? Fatigue might mount up for him and he might nod off, only to leap up in a panic of anxiety. Did danger slip past his gaze? Is the city now in peril? He also needs the dawn to come so that he can see and rest.

Did Solomon mean any irony, sandwiching this verse about God himself giving sleep between the anxiety of work and the heritage of children? Or is it pure providence? Because the parent, having been blessed with such a heritage, a quiver full perhaps, is not getting any sleep either. It may even be understood that the watcher and the builder without children get a vast deal more sleep than the watcher and the builder do who are blessed with one, or even many.

Of course it is in vain if we do anything without God’s provision and care. That part seems obvious. Less obvious to the very tired worn out middle of the night awake one is that sleep itself is a gift, from the hand of God himself, to the beloved. Surely, then, it would be sensible to ask for this gift, and to greet every moment of rest and sleep with a fervent prayer of gratitude and thanks.

It’s a remarkable thought. I remember the first time I didn’t automatically wake up at three a.m. It was probably two full years after weening the last baby. I slept through the night. And when I woke up, I was so tired. More tired than I felt like I had ever been. It did feel like I had been handed a strange and peculiar gift, one that I couldn’t possibly have understood had I not lost so much sleep for so long.

We can try to rid our lives of anxiety, but that is like trying not to sin. And we can try to do our work in an orderly way so that we go to bed and rise up at proper hours. But for the person who has children, or who lives in reality, there will be lots of times when sleep is needed but it can’t be had, it slips away in the moments before the dawn and you face hours and hours of exhaustion and hopelessness. But, if you are the Lord’s beloved, you can ask him for rest, for sleep, and because he loves you, he will hear your anxious and exhausted cry. Look at the promise! “He gives to his beloved sleep.”

May God give you a restful day!