July 14, 2018

I AM PERSUADED THAT HE IS ABLE:

TO HELP ME SLEEP

Psalm 3:5 I laid me down and slept; I awaked; for the LORD sustained me.

When David wrote this, he was running from his own son, Absalom. I am a father of three sons, and I know there are, and will be times when they will be upset with me. I cannot imagine, however, any of my sons trying to kill me. Things were really twisted in parts of David’s family. It could certainly be qualified as dysfunctional. We do not have time to discuss them all, but I can certainly imagine how down, discouraged, confused, hurt, angry, and even full of personal guilt David was here. Let me just put it this way: there is plenty there to keep a man up all night. So much was going through David’s mind, and I am sure there was not many seconds of the day that his mind was not consumed on this.

Maybe you have had this type of experience. I hope your own child has not tried to murder you, but I mean some conflict that has “kept you up at night”. It may very well involve family or someone who was close to you. I have found the older I get, the more there is to lose sleep over. I think it is clearly implied here that David had not been sleeping well, and that this had been one of the most difficult things he had been through. In fact in verse four, David said this:

* 4 I cried unto the LORD with my voice, and he heard me out of his holy hill.

Crying signifies desperation. When you and I go through things like this, it is life changing when we realize that God will sustain us through it. When David cried to God, he tells us that God heard him. God is always listening by the way. He will always be there when we cry to Him. It does not say that God fixed everything. It did not say that God struck down Absalom with lightning, or that God made any particular change in David’s present circumstances. It just says that God heard him. When that happened, Verse four tells us that David laid down, got some sleep, and then woke up. And guess what David found out; God sustained him the whole time. Sometimes God does not change the problem, He changes you.

Dear friend, God will sustain you. God will always be with you, and He will never forsake you. He has seen problems like yours before. God is not fretting over how He can handle this one. I encourage you to let God bear it. Let God have it, and give it totally and completely to Him. Cry out to Him and He will hear you. Then lay down, get some sleep, and wake up ready to serve God tomorrow. Notice what David says in the next chapter

* Psalm 4:8 I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep: for thou, LORD, only makest me dwell in safety.