Your cry for sleep is but the echo of a deeper weariness. The body, exhausted, calls out, yet the soul lies drunk with cares and unmindful of its true condition. You ask for rest in the night, but have you considered that God, who keeps Israel, neither slumbers nor sleeps? While you toss and turn, He watches. Entrust yourself to His keeping, and do not allow your foot to be moved by despair. But know this: the sleeplessness you suffer is often the fruit of a soul that has drunk deeply of worldly anxieties and the poison of vice. For drunkenness is not from wine alone; every unchecked passion makes the soul reel. The desire for drink, the harsh words, the strained relations, these are the thorns that choke your rest.
You call yourself an alcoholic, and rightfully you confess it. But mere confession without a firm stand is a sleep from which you must awake. It is in your power always to have it day, always to watch. The night of sin overtakes us only when we choose to shut the eyes of the soul. Shake off this evil sleep, this stupor that makes you see false comforts as real ones. The life passed in vice sees things that are fleeting as though they were abiding. Riches, pleasure, the numbing of pain through drink, all these are a dream. But the day of the Lord will find you, and what then? Pull these roots up by the strength God gives. Be sober, not only in body but above all in mind, for sobriety is the keenness of watching. When the heart is not stifled by excess, it recovers itself quickly.
Yet do not imagine you strive alone. The Good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep, not needing a command, for He is love itself. He sees your household tangled in these snares, your wife’s drinking and smoking, your son’s addictions, your daughter’s wayward moments, and He stretches out His hand. But you must come out from among the unclean things. Touch no more the cup that makes you drunk, whether it be wine or bitter resentment. And when your wife speaks meanly, remember that in forgiving her you gain a great reward: you are taught to have a human soul, trained in gentleness, and will not be called to account for your own many offences. So pray for her, and for your bosses, coworkers, customers. Their hearts are not hardened beyond the reach of the God of peace, who brought again from the dead the Great Shepherd.
The sleep you crave is not evil in itself; Jesus our Master slept in the boat, showing He took on our full weakness. But He slept amid the storm without anxiety, for He trusted the Father. You are in a storm of your own making, yet He is in the boat with you. Cry to Him, and He will calm the waves. Then, when your soul is composed, your sleep will be as the sleep of the saints, orderly, pure, free from wild dreams, because the fear of God stands sentry over it.
Therefore, do not merely ask for a good night’s sleep. Ask to be made perfect in every good work, doing that which is well, pleasing in His sight. Bear the struggle manfully, not because things cannot be undone, but because you and your household will surely rise again. The child who sleeps in death is not lost; the soul dead in sin may be awakened. God calls His bountiful dealings “rest.” So cease your lamenting, and turn it to a firm resolve. The day is at hand; let us walk as in the day, watchful and sober. Amen.