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Charles Schulz once drew a Peanuts comic with Snoopy out in the woods in his ranger outfit with the little
yellow birds who were his Beagle scouts. He tells them it's all nighttime and they all go into a tent and you only see the
words coming out where Snoopy says "Can we have a what? Well sure we can have a prayer."
Then he starts, "Now I lay
me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake..."
He never goes further because
right after that the three little birds go running out of the tent scared silly. In the last frame Snoopy sticks his head
out of the front and says "Maybe I should just stick with one of the Psalms."
Perchance we can relate to those little
birds in some ways. Do you ever have a hard time trusting God? If you've ever questioned your salvation, you have had a hard
time trusting God. In fact, I would say whenever you sin it's a lack of trust in God because you believe your way is better
than his way.
But ironically, there is a time when we all trust God. That is when we go to rest. One of the little
sayings I remember growing up with was "Give your worries to God. He's going to be up all night anyway." Could it be that
the very act of rest is giving our worries to God?
Consider it for the control freak. This person wants to be in control
but surrenders all their bodily functions to where anything can happen. The time of body shut down can leaves one unable to
control themselves. You rarely have dreams you can control in anyway and you don't control how you move. This is why some
people sleepwalk. We can be sure they didn't intentionally mean to do what they did while sleepwalking.
But yet you
rest and you trust you'll wake up tomorrow, barring you have some terminal illness or something of that sort. Most of us do
rest assured, the sun will come up tomorrow and we'll be there to see it. But how do we know this? We do not control our bodies
during this time. We leave them in the hands of the one who controls the very galaxies of our universe.
Who knows what
could happen while you rest? You could have a meteor come down and fall on your house. You could have a robber break in. You
could have a child get very sick. You, yourself, could have a stroke or a heart attack. Still, you silence yourself and offer
yourself in trust.
A doctrine we don't teach as much in the church today is providence. We teach that God is on the
throne but we don't make him active there. God is guiding the universe and has arranged natural laws in a way that keeps us
safest. While we sleep at night, God is managing the universe and even in the farthest galaxies we are just now finding, God
has planted them in such a way that the universe will work in harmony and we can have a place to live.
Psalm 74:16
says "The day is yours, and yours also the night. You established the sun and the moon." God is in charge not just when the
sun is shining but when it isn't shining. Thus, my conclusion is that, if we can trust God so well when the moon is out, why
not trust him when the sun shines?
And let us not forget that his Son shines for us as well.
In Christ,
Nick
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