Daily Manna · Day 265 · September 22
Peaceful Sleep
“I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep: for thou, LORD, only makest me dwell in safety.”
Another psalm says it simply: "for so he giveth his beloved sleep." At one o'clock in the morning, that can be one of the hardest sentences in the Bible to believe.
There is an honest objection, and it deserves to be said out loud. Telling someone who cannot sleep that God keeps them safe does not make them fall asleep. Anxiety is often a body that has decided to stay on watch, and no verse switches that off on command.
So look closely at what Psalm 4 really claims. It claims less than people think, and more than they notice. The first verse tells us David was in trouble: "thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress." This psalm did not come from a calm life. And the word that holds up verse eight is "only": "for thou, LORD, only makest me dwell in safety." David never claims to feel safe. He says that keeping himself safe was never his job in the first place. That is a statement about who is in charge, and it stays true even when his nerves do not agree. He can lie down because the watch is being kept, whether or not he is the one keeping it.
So do one small, honest thing tonight. Take the one worry you were planning to lie awake going over, name it plainly, and hand it to God. Then lie down with it still unsettled. You were not the one keeping your house safe last night either. God was, and He will keep watch again tonight.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 265 is Thou God Seest Me (Genesis 16:13).