Skip to main content

Sleep well, my friends

The saying is true: Bad dreams come from too much worrying, and too many words come from foolish people. (Ecclesiastes 5:3)

Are you a dreamer? I don't have many dreams I can recount when I awaken. Most of the time I simply have a slight memory for a short period of time and then as I fully awaken, those memories fade away as quickly as the day dawns. Yet, I have dreams - mine are just 'daytime dreams'. I think on things at night when I awaken, mulling them over and over in my mind until I find a solution to the thing I am contemplating. If I need to make something out of this or that, I think on the many 'solutions' to the 'making'. I don't create the thing while I am asleep, but rather when I am fully awake, firmly committed to the design I imagine will work, and committed to beginning to put the idea into motion. 

Bad dreams - do we have these on occasion? Some people suffer from traumatic circumstances that leave them with haunting 'nightmares' of the events. Imagine never being able to go to sleep without the 'fear' of reliving the worst event of your lifetime. Most of us would resist the tiredness of our bodies and minds in hopes we'd never drift off into that state that would allow those images and memories to haunt us. We'd fight sleep because we would know the 'fight' of our sleep. I am not referring to these type of 'terror' dreams today, though. I am referencing the 'bad dreams' that come through what Solomon aptly referred to as 'too much worrying'. The type of 'dreams' that surface because we mull over things best left 'un-mulled'. 

Do you know that the term 'mull' actually means more than to turn something over and over in our minds? It also carries the meaning of making a mess or failure out of something - probably because the more we ruminate on something that causes us anxious worry, the worse we imagine the outcome will be. We actually bring on the 'mess' by all the 'mulling'. Bad dreams come to those who are continual 'mullers'. I used to kid with my mom on occasion, telling her she'd worry about not having anything to worry about. Sometimes we 'mull' over the things that we have little control over - thinking our worrying would somehow change the circumstances. The truth is - if we don't 'own' the issue, we the ones to 'fix' the issue. 

When we begin to 'give over' ownership of the issues in our lives, the one who takes control of those things begins to settle our minds and hearts. Jesus doesn't look lightly upon us 'owning' what we cannot fix. He makes a way for the 'fix' even when we don't know we don't own the problem! Once he shows us we aren't the right 'owners' of the issue, and we let it go, he takes it into his hands. There is much to be learned in letting go, but perhaps the best lesson we can learn is how to get the best night's sleep of our lives! Just sayin!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

What did obedience cost Mary and Joseph?

As we have looked at the birth of Christ, we have considered the fact he was born of a virgin, with an earthly father so willing to honor God with his life that he married a woman who was already pregnant.  In that day and time, a very taboo thing.  We also saw how the mother of Christ was chosen by God and given the dramatic news that she would carry the Son of God.  Imagine her awe, but also see her tremendous amount of fear as she would have received this announcement, knowing all she knew about the time in which she lived about how a woman out of wedlock showing up pregnant would be treated.  We also explored the lowly birth of Jesus in a stable of sorts, surrounded by animals, visited by shepherds, and then honored by magi from afar.  The announcement of his birth was by angels - start to finish.  Mary heard from an angel (a messenger from God), while Joseph was set at ease by a messenger from God on another occasion - assuring him the thing he was about to do in marrying Mary wa

A brilliant display indeed

Love from the center of who you are ; don’t fake it. Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good. Be good friends who love deeply ; practice playing second fiddle. Don’t burn out; keep yourselves fueled and aflame. Be alert servants of the Master, cheerfully expectant. Don’t quit in hard times; pray all the harder. (Romans 12:9-12) Integrity and Intensity don't seem to fit together all that well, but they are uniquely interwoven traits which actually complement each other. "Love from the center of who you are; don't fake it." God asks for us to have some intensity (fervor) in how we love (from the center of who we are), but he also expects us to have integrity in our love as he asks us to be real in our love (don't fake it). They are indeed integral to each other. At first, we may only think of integrity as honesty - some adherence to a moral code within. I believe there is a little more to integrity than meets the eye. In the most literal sense,

Do me a favor

If you’ve gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if his love has made any difference in your life, if being in a community of the Spirit means anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care—then do me a favor: Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited friends. Don’t push your way to the front; don’t sweet-talk your way to the top. Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. Don’t be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand. (Philippians 2:1-4) Has God's love made ANY difference in your life? What is that difference? Most of us will likely say that our lives were changed for the good, while others will say there was a dramatic change. Some left behind lifestyles marked by all manner of outward sin - like drug addiction, alcoholism, prostitution, or even thievery. There are many that will admit the things they left behind were just a bit subtler - what we can call inward sin - things like jealousy,