The Key to a Good Night’s Sleep

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Article: Psalm 4: The Key to a Good Night’s Sleep By Ross Lester. (original source here). Ross lives in Blairgowrie, Johannesburg with his wife Sue and young son, Daniel. He is lead pastor and elder at Bryanston Bible Church.

For the choir director; on stringed instruments. A Psalm of David.

1 Answer me when I call, O God of my righteousness!
You have relieved me in my distress;
Be gracious to me and hear my prayer.
2 O sons of men, how long will my honor become a reproach?
How long will you love what is worthless and aim at deception? Selah.
3 But know that the LORD has set apart the godly man for Himself;
The LORD hears when I call to Him.
4 Tremble, and do not sin;
Meditate in your heart upon your bed, and be still. Selah.
5 Offer the sacrifices of righteousness,
And trust in the LORD.
6 Many are saying, “Who will show us any good?”
Lift up the light of Your countenance upon us, O LORD!
7 You have put gladness in my heart,
More than when their grain and new wine abound.
8 In peace I will both lie down and sleep,
For You alone, O LORD, make me to dwell in safety.

Reflection:
Psalm 3 and Psalm 4 are said to be a pair that are intended to go together. They function as bookends for a day. Psalm 3 is a Psalm for the morning (which is probably why it is so angry), and Psalm 4 is a song for the evening. A lullaby, if you like; a soothing song to hum along to before you fall asleep.

Do you ever struggle to sleep? The key to a good night’s sleep, according to David, is to know that what God thinks about your right standing before him is way more important than what you or others believe about it. In verse 1 of the Psalm, David uses a name for God that isn’t used anywhere else in Scripture. He calls him “God of my righteousness.” Now, because it is such a unique term in the Scripture, there is a lot of argument about how best to express it. C.H. Spurgeon was fascinated by the term, and he explained it this way:

It means, Thou art the author, the witness, the maintainer, the judge, and the rewarder of my righteousness; to thee I appeal from the calumnies and harsh judgments of men. Herein is wisdom, let us imitate it and always take our suit, not to the petty courts of human opinion, but into the superior court, the King’s Bench of heaven. (The Treasury of David, Vol 1, Pg. 34)

As David was being pursued by forces led by his son Absalom, he was having a lot of accusations thrown at him. They must have kept him up at night. “You are a sham, David. You were a lousy king. Remember what you did with Bathsheba? Even your own son hates you.”

I reckon that a lot of us have voices of accusation that keep us up at night. I don’t know what they sound like to you, but I certainly experience them at times in my life. Continue reading →

Concerning God’s Will

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This article is adapted from “In His Image: 10 Ways God Calls Us to Reflect His Character” by Jen Wilkin.

Discerning God’s Will
For the believer wanting to know God’s will for her life, the first question to pose is not “What should I do?” but “Who should I be?”

Perhaps you’ve tried to use the Bible to answer the question “What should I do?” Facing a difficult decision, perhaps you’ve meditated for hours on a psalm or a story in the Gospels, asking God to show you how it speaks to your current dilemma. Perhaps you’ve known the frustration of hearing silence, or worse, of acting on a hunch or “leading” only to find later that you apparently had not heard the Lord’s will. I know that process better than I’d like to admit, and I also know the shame that accompanies it—the sense that I’m tone-deaf to the Holy Spirit, that I’m terrible at discovering God’s will.

But God does not hide his will from his children. As an earthly parent, I do not tell my kids, “There is a way to please me. Let’s see if you can figure out what it is.” If I do not conceal my will from my earthly children, how much more our heavenly Father? His will does not need discovering. It is in plain sight. To see it we need to start asking the question that deals with his primary concern. We need to ask, “Who should I be?”

Start with the Heart
Of course, the questions “What should I do?” and “Who should I be?” are not unrelated. But the order in which we ask them matters. If we focus on our actions without addressing our hearts, we may end up merely as better behaved lovers of self.

Think about it. What good is it for me to choose the right job if I’m still consumed with selfishness? What good is it for me to choose the right home or spouse if I’m still eaten up with covetousness? What does it profit me to make the right choice if I’m still the wrong person? A lost person can make “good choices.” But only a person indwelt by the Holy Spirit can make a good choice for the purpose of glorifying God.

The hope of the gospel in our sanctification is not simply that we would make better choices, but that we would become better people. This is the hope that caused John Newton to pen, “I once was lost but now am found, was blind, but now I see.” It is what inspires the apostle Paul to speak of believers “being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Cor. 3:18). The gospel teaches us that the grace that is ours through Christ is, by the work of the Spirit, transforming us increasingly into someone better. But not just anyone better.

The gospel begins transforming us into who we should have been. It re-images us. Want to know what it should have been like to be human? Look to the only human who never sinned.