I'm Giving Up Sleep For Lent

 Not all sleep, of course. It’s my first time ‘giving something up’ for Lent. Ideally, it’s an opportunity to identify with and appreciate the significant suffering that Christ went through on my behalf. People give up all kinds of stuff, chocolate, fish, social media and sports. I know of one person that sacrificed sarcasm.

I don’t want to approach Easter with arrogance. Nor do I desire to enter into self-flagellation as Martin Luther did before he understood his justification by faith. Seems the season should hold some sacrifice alongside a reflective posture. Loss and discipline. Remembering and celebrating. Perhaps you’ve come across people where their supposed sacrifice seems ho-hum, “I’m giving up salads!” I felt like I should loosen my hold of something that’s got hold of me. Something my friends recognize as my attachment. My wife’s loud guffaw when I told her I was giving up sleep let me know I was giving up the right thing.

Why sleep? I love my sleep. I have friends that enjoy sunrises. I don’t. Sunrises happen early in the morning when people should be sleeping. If I were on the show Survivor, giving up food would be a tertiary problem. What would ruin me would be giving up sleep. And coffee. The coffee which I need because I’m waking up---from sleep. It comes easy to me; in cars, on airplanes, in chairs and beds. I go to bed late and get up late. But not this season.

I’m not the watchman waiting for the morning, but I’ve been surprised to find a richness in rising earlier. My own voice encourages me to rise up saying, “It’s Lent!”. There’s been no mystical experience, no deep insights into Christ’s suffering. Nothing earth-shaking at all really. There has been this; a settling quiet. A peculiar calm as I sit at my desk drinking my coffee and reading my books. Beneath all that is an expectancy for Easter, the most earth-shaking of events preceding the raising of Christ, the First-fruits of those who are asleep!

Photo by CHUTTERSNAP on Unsplash

Finding Rest And Finding God

Finding rest is hard work.  Your mind and flesh will fight against you.  First you must overcome inertia; leave comfort and the known.  I had to return a bunch of phone calls from home this morning.  I have to fix a leaking shower head.  I want to hang Christmas lights.  Instead I got in the car to go hike.

Enroute my body told me it craves a hamburger.  I’d eaten lunch; didn’t need food.  I told it I would feed it later.  Once on the trail there came the jumble of thoughts.  I’d come to rest.  I’d come to just be; to experience time with Jesus.  The mind fights that.

Rest isn’t a thing the mind does readily.  Amusement—yes; the 10 hours the average American spends in screen time.  Quiet resting though is a discipline.  I found myself praying for stuff; planning my vacations, blocking out my work week.  I had to actively bring thought back to God; to meditation, to quiet the hum. 

I don’t think the rattle of thoughts is a bad thing.  Perhaps it calls attention to the state of your heart.  Having set aside being busy at home my mind was trying to busy itself with thought.  I found I had to focus on the now.  I told my lungs to breathe deep.  I stood beside a pool and noticed moisture on the sides of the bank; the dry leaves still clinging for it hadn’t been wet enough to wash them downward.  The thoughts continued as I strove to order them.

I saw no visions.  I didn’t find the perfect zone.  Still it’s amazing that as thinking creatures we can seek stillness---that we can wrestle with thought and gray matter to bring it into a place of quiet.  To order our thoughts around meditation and quiet; to focus on God and to listen for Him---and to Him.  Still most amazing is that an infinite God reveals Himself; and allows Himself to be found.