James & Tess Arendt
My Saviour, hear my prayerThe final thing we should do at night as we lie down to sleep is to thank Jesus for a good day, and pray for a good night's rest! He has promised to keep us in PERFECT PEACE if we keep our minds stayed on Him.--Isaiah 26:3. So you'll find it very conducive to a peaceful night's sleep if you'll get your mind off your worries and problems and think about JESUS, and read something short and soothing and comforting from His Word. In fact, there are many precious promises in His Word that we can claim for a good night's sleep:
"I will lie down and sleep in peace, for You alone, Lord, make me dwell in safety."--Psalm 4:8.As we go to sleep, it's a good time to "commune with our own heart upon our bed" (Psalm 4:4), to take stock of things and to reflect momentarily on the day's events and accomplishments, and perhaps sometimes even its failures. Ask yourself if it has been a day in which you've done God's Will in obedience and yieldedness. Has it been a day that you're thankful for because you're sure the Lord is pleased with it? "What have I done with my life?", is a good question to ask yourself as you lie down to sleep at the end of every day. "What have I done with my life THIS day? Did I live it for JESUS so that I can lie down happy and contended, thankful and satisfied that I have done my best this day and can now rest peacefully?"
"Now I lay me down to sleep;
Jesus never sleeps! He watches over you all the time! "He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord watches over you."--Psalm 121:4,5.--And so do all of His Angels and Saints!--Isn't that a comforting thought?
Thank God for His Guardian Angels who make it possible for us to lie down in peace and go to sleep and not worry about enemies or troubles or anything! They never sleep, they're always awake! They don't need to rest, because they're not affected by gravity or weariness or hunger!
Our guards, the hosts of Heaven surrounding us, are on the job fulltime, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, ALL the time! Isn't that wonderful? Even this World has never been able to fur nish any guards like that! Praise the Lord! As the famous opera star, Mario Lanza, sang:
Guardian Angels around my bedBelieve it or not, your SPIRIT, the real YOU, doesn't need sleep! While your physical body is having to rest, your immortal spirit is constantly busy and thinking and dreaming and having spiritual experiences all the time in your sleep. It doesn't have to sleep because it's immortal, eternal, spiritual. "The things that are seen are temporal, the things that are not seen are eternal!"--2Corinthians 4:18. The physical dies away but the spiritual is forever, and even in your sleep, it's busy all the time, having experiences, learning lessons, making decisions and exploring!
Sometimes the Lord allows us to remember those spiritual experiences and dreams. But it's undoubtedly a blessing that He doesn't allow us to remember everything that our spirits experience while we're asleep! It would be too much of a burden on our conscious minds to have to remember all that, when we have enough in our present physical lives to think and be concerned about!
Sometimes the Lord lets us be TESTED in our dreams to see what we WOULD do under such circumstances! It's a pretty realistic test under dream conditions, because you don't know you're in a dream! You think it's really happening, so your reactions are very realistic and genuine as to what you would REALLY do under such circumstances!
Then, many times when you have to make a certain decision when you're awake, it's much easier to make the right decisions, because hopefully you learned the lessons while you were sleeping and making choices under similiar conditions in your dreams. So, thank God for our dreams! They're part of our Heavenly spiritual education!
"I will praise the Lord, Who has given me counsel: Even in the night He instructs my heart."--Psalm 16:7.There are a lot of different reasons why people sometimes have bad dreams. It could be something you ate, or something you were worrying about when you went to sleep, and you just subconsciously carried that train of thought on in your sleep. Sometimes bad dreams are a warning from the Lord about something that's going to happen--or is already happening that you don't know about. But WARNING dreams from the LORD usually have something good and meaningful in them. They are usually not ENTIRELY bad and always have some kind of LESSON to be learned.
Some bad dreams could be a definite implantation of thoughts in your mind from evil spiritual sources, in an attempt to try to influence your thinking and scare you. The evil spirits try to fight us in our dreams just like the good spirits are trying to HELP us in our dreams!
When you have nightmares, your spirit is actually battling evil spiritual forces! The Lord sometimes ALLOWS it to see what you will DO, and what effect it will have on you. He wants to see if you'll make the right decision to really call on HIM for HELP! So bad dreams too are all a part of your spiritual life and experience which continues in your sleep! Of course, it is NOT God's Will that we have bad dreams all the time! If your sleep is troubled and you are continually having nightmares or bad dreams, you should pray and rebuke the Devil and ask the Lord to DELIVER you from such hindering dreams!
It's often helpful to have a NIGHTLIGHT on in your room because evil spirits don't like the light! They are lovers of darkness because their deeds are evil, so they flee from the light!--John 3:19. So it's good to always have a little light on and not sleep in complete darkness.
You also need to specifically PRAY and ask the Lord to give you good dreams! Sometimes we have bad dreams because we forget to PRAY and ask the Lord for good ones! As James 4:2 says, sometimes "we HAVE NOT because we ASK NOT". The Lord wants to be recognised. He wants you to know that you need Him! That's why He wants you to pray!
If you know the Lord, then you're HIS child, and you don't have ANYTHING to fear or worry about! You KNOW that the Lord is protecting and keeping you! He hallows you around about and gives His Angels charge over you!--See Psalm 91:11.
Those times in the night when you can't sleep are a wonderful time to PRAY and PRAISE the Lord! King David said "I remember Thee upon my bed, and meditate on Thee in the night watches"--Psalm 63:6. The night is so quiet and still! You can reach right up to God and hear His Voice so plain--the still small voice in the wee hours of the night!
He likes to whisper like a lover in your ear in soft, sweet tones! He likes to woo you in the night with His tender, gentle, loving Voice, whispering in your heart, when the slightest whisper can be heard! It's often so hard to hear Him in the daytime with the clatter, the noise, all the other voices, all the racket of the World pounding on your eardrums! But in the cool and quiet of the night, it's all so peaceful and still. You can see the tiny stars twinkling away so quietly, so sweetly! Like watching Angels, they just wink at you, they whisper to you, they talk to you without a sound!
While the Scriptures speak many times of DARKNESS with an evil connotation, the physical NIGHT, created by God Himself, is NOT evil, and is often spoken of as a blessing! Jesus arose a great while before it was day, so obviously He rose during the NIGHT to pray! The Lord appeared to Solomon in the NIGHT and granted him wisdom and knowledge as he had requested! And David in the Psalms speaks so much of communing with God in the NIGHT seasons!--Mark 1:35; Luke 6:12; 1Kings 3:5-15; Psalm 77:6.
So, if you wake up at night and can't go back to sleep, maybe God wants you to PRAY! As soon as you get prayed up, you'll probably go right back to sleep! TRY it!
When at night you sleepless lie,My name is James Arendt. I was raised in the Hegewisch neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois, served in the USAF from 1970 to 1974, and became a full-time missionary for Christ living 40 years in Japan, 3.5 years in Russia, and a few months in other countries such as Finland, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, South Korea, Taiwan and mainland China where I also served the King of Kings, Jesus, as an Ambassador for His Kingdom. My full bio.
If you like this website, you can show your appreciation by sending me a gift toward my support. My wife Tess and I moved from the island of Guam USA in June 2023 to the city of Allen in the province of Northern Samar, one of the poorer provinces in the Philippines. My only work is maintaining my websites, Deep Truths, and James Japan which costs me $300 per year now. And Tess is ministering to the local people giving them regular Bible Studies in three groups, children, teenagers and adults.
You may like my James Japan site as well because it covers subjects that are not covered in Deep Truths such as things like the Climate Change Hoax and the COVID-19 death-jabs.
You don't need a PayPay account to send me a donation! Just click on the donate button and you will see an option to send through your debit or credit card.
Reply
Permalink
Flag
0
0
If you'd like more inspirational material,