Daily Manna · Day 59 · February 28
Sweet Sleep
“When thou liest down, thou shalt not be afraid: yea, thou shalt lie down, and thy sleep shall be sweet.”
You get into bed, and the whole day starts over in your head: the email you did not send, the tone you used with your child, the number in the bank account that will not stretch.
Solomon's promise comes with a "then" attached, and it takes three verses to get there. First he says, "My son, let not them depart from thine eyes: keep sound wisdom and discretion." Next he says, "Then shalt thou walk in thy way safely, and thy foot shall not stumble." Only after that does he say, "When thou liest down, thou shalt not be afraid." He is describing a whole life, and the sleep grows out of that life. It is no trick you can use at eleven at night. Two verses later he names where the confidence really rests, and it rests in God: "For the LORD shall be thy confidence, and shall keep thy foot from being taken." Sweet sleep comes from putting your weight on Someone who never sleeps.
That is worth putting into practice tonight in whatever small way you can. Put the phone across the room. Take the three things you were going to go over in the dark, hand them to God one by one, by name, and tell Him you are finished with them until morning. If one of them is something you did wrong, make it right when it is light.
The day will still start over in your mind, because that is what days do. The only question is whether it starts over on your shoulders or in the hands of the One who was going to be awake through all of it anyway.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 59 is The Road Out of Moab (Ruth 1:16).