Your plea for restful sleep, protection, and provision touches on needs that are both of the body and the soul. Consider what sleep truly is. The present life itself is a sleep, and the things in it are no different from dreams. Riches, health, and all such things often appear solid, yet they flee away like night visions. The one who sleeps sees not things as they are, but fills the mind with phantoms. So when you ask for restful sleep, seek first to be sober in your soul. It is possible to sleep while awake, by doing nothing good; but sobriety gives intensity to watchfulness. A heart not weighed down with excess of food or worldly cares soon recovers itself and rests in decency. If you would have your body sleep in peace, let your soul be wakeful to God. Do not let the night find you replaying wrongs or plotting gain; those embers of wrath and greed disturb true rest. Rather, commit yourself into the hands of Him who keeps Israel and neither slumbers nor sleeps.
As for divine protection, the same truth holds. It is written, “He that keepeth thee shall not slumber.” Yet the suffering of being moved often depends on ourselves. Do not suffer your foot to be moved into sin. For if we stand steadfast and unmovable in faith, we shall not be shaken. The earthquake that loosed Paul’s bonds did not come by chance, but as a deliverance ordained by God. The prison keeper, seeing his own peril, cried out, “What must I do to be saved?” He learned that safety is found in Christ alone. Trust that same God who opens doors and breaks chains; He watches over you, and no real harm can touch the soul that clings to Him.
Regarding financial provision for medical needs, the apostle instructs us to make provision for the flesh, but not to fulfill its lusts. Caring for the body in weakness, as with a little wine for the stomach’s sake, is both lawful and good. God knows you need these things. Yet do not let the pursuit of money inflame desire or drown you in anxious care. The drunkenness of the soul comes not only from wine, but from the craving for wealth. If you make provision only for health and necessity, and spend your chief industry on spiritual things, you will find that the Father who feeds the birds will not neglect your body. Remember the widow’s mite and the unlearned disciples: no one is too poor or too ordinary to please God by using whatever talent they have, whether money or other help, for genuine need. Let your request be free from the fever of accumulation, and entrust yourself to the common Lord, who desires that we live for one another’s advantage.
Pray then not merely for the removal of trials, but to bear them in a manner worthy of the gospel. Ask that your sleep be sober, your protection rooted in unwavering trust, and your provision sought with hands that are pure and a heart that is wakeful. May you rise from this dream of life to the day that never ends, healed in soul and body according to His will.