Silas
Beloved of All
The groan you feel in your body, the bloating, the acid burning your throat, the ache deep in your bones, is the same groan Scripture speaks of when it says we who are in this body often yearn earnestly, longing to be delivered from it. The pain in your jaw and teeth, the struggle to draw a normal breath, the nights when sleep refuses to come or is stolen by torment; these are not signs that God has forgotten you. They are the echoes of a creation that was subjected to corruption through sin, the very corruption Jesus wept over when He stood at the tomb of a friend and saw the grief that human limitation brings.
Your request for sweet, undisturbed sleep and relief from pain is not a small thing to Him. When Jesus walked among us, He was troubled in His own spirit by the suffering He witnessed. He saw the tears, He heard the wailing, and He was moved with compassion. He is not a distant observer of your sleepless nights. Every time you lie down and your left leg throbs, every time you choke on the acid rising from within, He is the High Priest who is touched by the feeling of your weaknesses. He bore suffering in His own body, a body that knew exhaustion, that endured stripes, and that, in fulfilling the plan of redemption, kept every bone intact only so that no prophetic requirement would be broken. He understands what it means to hurt.
There is a rest that your physical body craves right now, eight hours of peace where pain does not dictate your consciousness. It is good to ask for that mercy. Yet there is also a deeper rest that belongs to you as a child of God, a truth that sets your experience apart from mere cessation. When the Scriptures speak of the faithful falling asleep, they are not pointing to annihilation but to a temporary quieting of the outer man, awaiting the full awakening. The pain that keeps you awake, the jaw that clenches, the lungs that labor, these will not have the final word. Jesus came to awake us out of such sleep, to demonstrate that what sin has broken, He will restore.
Do not interpret the severity of this trial as the portion of the wicked, who travail in pain all their days. You are not travailing toward despair. Your discomfort is the prison of your present flesh crying out for the redemption of your body. Even now, as you pray, ask the Lord who commanded the storm to be still to command peace over your frame. Pray for the bloating to subside and for your diaphragm to move freely again. Ask that the acid would cease and that your bones, especially in that left leg, would be quieted so you can rest. He knows you need sleep. Even Peter, in the garden, was overcome by it in his deep sorrow, unable to watch one hour.
Lean into the promise that while we are in the wilderness of this life, He causes the shower of blessing to come down in its season. Your season for healing and rest may come in this very night. Should it tarry, you still have the assurance that the One who watched over Jacob as he slept on a stone, with a ladder set between heaven and earth, has not stopped watching over you. May your breathing settle into the easy rhythm of His peace, may your jaw and teeth release their tension, and may you find the slumber in which no wolf of fear or sheep of anxious thought can cross over your Shepherd to reach you.
Your request for sweet, undisturbed sleep and relief from pain is not a small thing to Him. When Jesus walked among us, He was troubled in His own spirit by the suffering He witnessed. He saw the tears, He heard the wailing, and He was moved with compassion. He is not a distant observer of your sleepless nights. Every time you lie down and your left leg throbs, every time you choke on the acid rising from within, He is the High Priest who is touched by the feeling of your weaknesses. He bore suffering in His own body, a body that knew exhaustion, that endured stripes, and that, in fulfilling the plan of redemption, kept every bone intact only so that no prophetic requirement would be broken. He understands what it means to hurt.
There is a rest that your physical body craves right now, eight hours of peace where pain does not dictate your consciousness. It is good to ask for that mercy. Yet there is also a deeper rest that belongs to you as a child of God, a truth that sets your experience apart from mere cessation. When the Scriptures speak of the faithful falling asleep, they are not pointing to annihilation but to a temporary quieting of the outer man, awaiting the full awakening. The pain that keeps you awake, the jaw that clenches, the lungs that labor, these will not have the final word. Jesus came to awake us out of such sleep, to demonstrate that what sin has broken, He will restore.
Do not interpret the severity of this trial as the portion of the wicked, who travail in pain all their days. You are not travailing toward despair. Your discomfort is the prison of your present flesh crying out for the redemption of your body. Even now, as you pray, ask the Lord who commanded the storm to be still to command peace over your frame. Pray for the bloating to subside and for your diaphragm to move freely again. Ask that the acid would cease and that your bones, especially in that left leg, would be quieted so you can rest. He knows you need sleep. Even Peter, in the garden, was overcome by it in his deep sorrow, unable to watch one hour.
Lean into the promise that while we are in the wilderness of this life, He causes the shower of blessing to come down in its season. Your season for healing and rest may come in this very night. Should it tarry, you still have the assurance that the One who watched over Jacob as he slept on a stone, with a ladder set between heaven and earth, has not stopped watching over you. May your breathing settle into the easy rhythm of His peace, may your jaw and teeth release their tension, and may you find the slumber in which no wolf of fear or sheep of anxious thought can cross over your Shepherd to reach you.
