Lulled to Sleep

“It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn Your decrees.” Psalm 119:71 NIV

When I was a teenager and my family docked our 30-foot boat in a bay, we kids would sleep on the rear deck at night. Back in that bay, the waters were calm with mere ripples of waves lapping at the hull. We were quickly lulled to sleep, in part because we had spent the day in the sun and water, swimming, rowing our dinghy, fishing, and running up and down the docks.

But when we took the boat out into the deep sea for fishing or scuba diving or traveling, it was a different story. It was usually difficult to sleep because the boat was being tossed around on the swells and troughs, waves and whitecaps. When the wind was up, we hung onto something stable just to take a few steps.

This exactly parallels our spiritual experience. The calm lulls us to sleep. The comforts are too comfortable. We don’t want to move off our deck chairs. We want to sit and enjoy the view, the warmth, the fun, the blessings. Nothing rocks the boat. It’s the easy life, and so many of us are living it.

Who would choose a storm over the doldrums? Someone who wanted to get somewhere, that’s who! Someone who wanted to move ahead, to accept a change of scenery, to experience a different sort of life, or, to borrow from C.S. Lewis, to have our deck chairs rearranged.

I prayed for more awareness of Jesus in my daily life. I got pain that drove me to Him, causing me to seek Him deeply. I can’t ask why He gave this particular pain. “But He stands alone, and who can oppose Him? He does whatever He pleases” (Job 23:13 NIV).

God is not capricious. He isn’t looking down at me with displeasure. He isn’t angry with me. He isn’t wishy-washy. What He is, is faithful and good. He knows when the calm has lulled me to sleep, and in love He wakes me up.

Why, O God? Why can’t I just rest here awhile, in the good life? Why must I be on the move to new life in You? Why must I go out into deep waters, walk through fires, and be carried across floods? I’m in the comfy-cozy zone, and I’d really rather stay here, if it’s all the same to You.

Well, as it turns out, it isn’t all the same to Him. His plan is to dig up my fallow ground so He can plant a crop that He can harvest in due time. This is, in fact, exactly what I signed up for when I asked Him for new life. I was not useful in my comfortable, sleeping, unaware, unmoving state. He woke me up, gave me His Spirit, and off we go. I limp some, as Jacob did when his hip was put out of joint, but it’s OK—it reminds me that we have wrestled over what happens in this life. He wins, of course. He has purposes beyond what I would choose for myself.

Lord, afflict us as needed, so that we would not go astray. We admit that we aren’t You. We can’t do what You do. We don’t choose what You choose. Wake us up to Your life in us. Amen.