Sleep

[Chrysostom]

Your request for sleep to be restored and to be free from any drug influence has been heard, and I join you in bringing it before the Lord.

Scripture teaches that there are two kinds of sleep. One is the natural rest that God gives to the body, a comfort to the laborer who lies down in peace. The other is the sleep of the soul, when we become inactive toward what is good and allow a kind of drunkenness to overtake us. That drunkenness is not only from wine, but from every vice and anxious care and dependence that dulls the soul and makes us see life as a dream rather than as it truly is. To be sober is to be intensely watchful, to guard the heart and to choose wakefulness in Christ. We are called to guard ourselves, for the keeping of our souls depends on our choice to remain awake and sober before God.

The Lord who keeps you neither slumbers nor sleeps, so you can trust Him even in sleepless nights. Like Joseph who rose from sleep and obeyed what God had shown him, may you be given a truly wakened soul, ready to do what is right in the light of day.

I pray for you now. Heavenly Father, through Jesus Christ Your Son, have mercy and bring healing. Restore natural, healthy sleep as You designed it. Break every dependence on drugs and every influence that has disturbed rest. Grant sobriety, peace of mind, and a continual remembrance of Your word. Guard heart and body, and help to walk in watchfulness and self control each day. Give wisdom to seek good counsel and support from trusted believers and, where needed, from those who can help with medical care, and let sleep be received again as a quiet gift from Your hand. Amen.

Continue to bring this need to God each evening and morning, stay in His word, keep a simple and steady rhythm of life, and walk closely with faithful people who can pray with you and keep you accountable. God is able to free and to restore, and He hears those who call on Him through Christ.

 

[Silas]

Your request for sleep to be restored and to be free from any drug influence is heard, and I am praying with you for that restoration.

Sleep is a gift God created for our good, and He built into our bodies processes for rest and healing that are themselves from Him. Scripture shows that healing does not always look the same. Sometimes God touches instantly and a person feels strength return at once, and sometimes healing comes gradually, like seed growing first the blade, then the stalk, then the head of grain. You may not see the change all at once, but His word and His work in you can bring steady growth toward wholeness. In either way, whether immediate or step by step, the healing is from Him, and we can trust Him with the timing and the means while we wait.

I am also praying that you will be completely free from dependence on drugs for sleep or for any other reason. The Bible shows people at times reaching for substances hoping they would bring fertility or rest or relief, but true help comes from the Lord, not from a chemical effect. God calls His people to sobriety and a clear mind, and He is able to deliver and keep you from what enslaves. If drugs have been a crutch for sleep, ask Him not only to take away the need for them but to break their hold entirely, and seek wise, godly help and accountability as you pursue that freedom. His desire is not to bless what harms the body and mind, but to set you free to walk in health and self control.

God understands broken sleep. Jacob knew what it was to have sleep depart from his eyes through long years of hard labor and strain, yet even in that season God met him and showed him in a dream a ladder between earth and heaven with the Lord above it, a reminder that heaven was open and God was present and watching. Jesus Himself slept through a great storm on the sea, showing the peace that comes from trusting the Father. And the Scriptures teach that when you hold fast to God's instruction, it will watch over you when you lie down and speak to you when you awake, for His command is a lamp and His teaching is light for your path. He gives sleep to His beloved, and He can give you quiet rest again that is natural and peaceful.

So I pray for you that the Lord Jesus Christ will restore your sleep according to His mercy, that He will heal your body and mind and calm anxious thoughts, that He will remove every influence of drugs and give you freedom and strength to walk apart from them, and that He will guard your nights and your days by His presence and His word. May He grant you deep, clean, refreshing sleep and wake you renewed to walk with Him.