Day 47
Goodnight’s Sleep
As I watched the Porpoise moving ever so gracefully before me, a silly thought popped into my mind, “I wonder if they sleep?” They do. I looked it up on the Internet when I got home. Did you realize that fifty percent of all adults say they have trouble sleeping and that forty percent of us suffer from some type of sleep disorder?
God had a myriad of choices when He created us you know. He could have created us to require no sleep at all. He could have programmed us to turn off after we’ve been awake for sixteen hours, fall asleep for eight, and then turn on again, ready to roll. He didn’t. Yet, we continue to push the envelope, attempting to deny the reality of the way we were made. According to a recent report from the U.S. government, drowsy drivers are involved in about 56,000 crashes a year that result in 40,000 non-fatal injuries and 1,500 fatalities.[i] It is one of the most rapidly growing health disorders in the U.S.
Drowsy disciples have been a problem for Christianity since the days Jesus selected the initial twelve to follow Him. In one instance, Jesus needed time to get away and pray. He asked Peter along with eight other disciples to keep watch for those Jesus knew were after Him. When he returned to the place where He left them, Jesus exclaimed, “are you asleep?”[ii] Once again, Jesus departed to pray. When He returned, you guessed it; they were asleep again. Jesus exclaimed, “Are you sacked out again? Enough! Get up and Let’s move on.” It’s so easy for the spoken words of God to become a fading echo, spoken seemingly for the moment in which they were uttered, losing their vibrancy as they ricochet through the corridors of time. I believe we are living in a moment in time when we’re treating the spoken word of God as an echo, rather than a vibrant call to action, led by the living God. We’re all mixed up again about what counts in life. As C.S. Lewis said, “The man who has not learned to count is free from mathematical problems. A man asleep is free from all problems.”[iii] I disagree.
I walked into my buddy John’s house to play cards with the guys one winter night. There were several guys there I had never met. We introduced ourselves, got a beverage and sat down at the table. As the evening progressed, the idle conversation turned, as it often does with a small group of men, into a bitch session. All of us seemingly took turns complaining about the current annoyance in our lives, except one guy.
Jim looked like a poster-child for former bikers; full beard, fading tattoos on his forearms, bushy hair and penetrating eyes. He dwarfed the chair he was seated on. This particular evening, his appearance was akin to a Grizzly bear who had just tumbled away from sticking his tongue into a live electrical outlet; a bit disheveled, somewhat stunned and quiet. He looked tired.
Our host John turned to Jim and said, “Hey Jim! What about you?” Jim took a deep breath, paused for ten seconds while collecting his thoughts and said, “Well, I sure could use a good night’s sleep.” John asked “What’s up with that?” Jim shared that he had been sleeping on a car seat on the floor of an automotive repair shop where he had just been hired. There was no heat in the place. (Nighttime temperatures had been in the low to mid twenties in the Seattle area during this time). He was grateful that the owner was letting him stay there at night, until he earned enough money to get a room somewhere. He was also grateful for the three pairs of thermal underwear a co-worker had bought him and the two sleeping bags he had to bundled himself in attempting to keep the freeze off of him. However, it was still difficult to get a good night’s sleep.
There was an eerie silence that filled the room for a few seconds after Jim was done. The guys around the table seemed to be staring at the cards in their hands a little more intensely now. Jim interrupted the silence saying, “It’s not the cold that bothers me. It’s the rats. They seem to know when I doze off because that’s when they start running over the top of me.”
I invited Jim to follow me home that night. I had to drive a bit slower than usual because Jim drove a beat up pick up truck that his brother had loaned him that at best, could wobble down the freeway at 50 mph. Jim became a part of our family. He developed an insatiable appetite for God.
Every Friday around 5:00PM, you could hear the sound of Jim’s truck coming down the hill to our home. Friday was payday for Jim. He would burst into our house shouting greetings, smiling, proudly carrying two huge bags of groceries. In the kitchen, he would lay out loaves of bread, mustard, mayo, cheese, lettuce and some lunchmeats. He created this amazing assembly line to produce sandwiches. He wrapped each one in plastic wrap and placed it in its’ own brown paper bag along with a bag of potato chips and a napkin. He would place the bags in a large cardboard box and say, “See ya Sunday!”
Jim would spend the weekends with his mom. He adored her. She lived across Puget Sound in the city of Bremerton, an hour commute by ferryboat from downtown Seattle. On his way to the ferry every Friday evening, Jim would park his truck near Seattle’s Pioneer Square and walk along the street passing out the lunches he had prepared for the homeless in the skid road district. From there he would hop on the ferry to visit his mom during the weekend. He was always back at our place on Sunday evening for dinner.
Today, Jim is married to the love of his life and they have two fantastic children. They are a very happy bunch. He looks the same today as when I met him ten years ago. Jim and his wife hold a meeting in their home each week for people hungry to change the way they have been living by feasting on God’s Word, encouraging one another and sharing the reality of the struggle to change together. Jim is employed. He picks up and then delivers several thousand pounds of food each day to area food banks, as he has done for the better part of the last 8 years. He has maintained his insatiable appetite for God, coupled with an ever-present sense of gratitude and a desire to do for others what was done for him, through the grace of God. He has no problem getting a good night’s sleep.
One of the problems with Christianity today is that people think the purpose of our faith is to become blessed. As one author states, “When religions assume that their adherents are chosen only to be blessed, and forget that they are blessed to be a blessing, they distort their identity and they drift from God’s calling for them. When they assume that they are blessed exclusively rather than instrumentally, when they see themselves as blessed to the exclusion of others rather than for the benefit of others, they become part of the problem rather than part of the solution.” [iv]
My friend Jim is someone whose life reveals the wake up call that Christians require today. Listen to the words of Jesus as he bends down and caresses your forehead as you toss and turn recounting another day of surviving the days chaotic meandering during another night of sleeplessness, “Enough! Get up and Let’s move on.” Take His hand. Ask Him to instill in you an insatiable hunger for the God of More. Desire to become a blessing to the world around you. Like Jim, then, you will be able to enjoy a good night’s sleep as the wonders of His blessings are dispensed through you.
[i] http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/prof/sleep/drsy_drv.pdf
[ii] Mark 14: 32-42
[iii] Lewis, C.S. The Timeless Writings of C.S. Lewis, Family Christian Press & Wm B. Erdman’s Publishing Co., Grand Rapids, Mi.Inspirational Press Edition, A Division of BBS Publishing Corp. © 2004 p.211
[iv] McLaren, Brian D. The Story We Find Ourselves In – Further Adventures Of A New Kind Of Christian, Jossey-Bass Publishers – A Wiley Imprint, Copyright © 2003 by Brian D. McLaren, p. 64.
