Sleep Tug-O-War: Healing Our Relationship With Sleep

"I'll sleep when I'm dead." "I need to catch up on some sleep." Sleep is a rhythm designed by God, not a reward.

The Lord has been talking to me about rest recently. It started when He woke me up in the night to tell me we wouldn’t understand the concept of “waking up” if we didn’t have the rhythm of sleep.

Many times, the Lord will stir thoughts inside me for a while, and I’ll just form a sentence without really understanding it. Then He unpacks it with me using scripture, experience, and things the Holy Spirit reveals during prayer and meditation.

Here’s the thought.

If the body didn’t require the rhythm of sleep, we wouldn’t understand the concept of waking up. Spiritually, being asleep isn’t considered a good thing. We keep hearing lately about the church “waking up.” It needs to “wake up.” Many believe we need another “Great Awakening.” And people who consider themselves to be awake seem irritated with the ones who are still asleep.

But in the natural, we value sleep. We say we love it! Many times we don’t want to come out of sleep, we want to stay snuggled in our warm beds under the covers, snuggling our dogs, and we try to squeeze out the last few minutes of sleep we can.

Ask God to heal your sleep, and heal your relationship and understanding of sleep's design.

What's Your Relationship With Sleep?

Sleep has been misused and misunderstood in a couple of different ways. For many of us, sleep has become a goal. We plan days and vacations to “catch up on sleep.” On the other extreme, sleep can get sacrificed first if we are busy. “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.” “She’s burning the candle at both ends.” Both attitudes come from a failing to understand that sleep is actually a rhythm that God created for humans to be regularly restored, rejuvenated, and refreshed. When the rhythm of rest that God created for humans gets out of order, we suffer. I believe we are seeing that in today’s western culture.

Sleeping From Sorrow

When my friends and I were at Pastors Conference in January 2025, Corey Russell preached about the disciples sleeping at the Garden of Gesthamane on Mount of Olives. Here is the passage:

39 And he came out and went, as was his custom,

to the Mount of Olives, and the disciples followed him.

40 And when he came to the place, he said to them,

“Pray that you may not enter into temptation.”

41 And he withdrew from them about a stone's throw,

and knelt down and prayed,

42 saying, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me.

Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.”

43 And there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him.

44 And being in agony he prayed more earnestly;

and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.

45 And when he rose from prayer,

he came to the disciples and found them sleeping for sorrow,

46 and he said to them, “Why are you sleeping?

Rise and pray that you may not enter into temptation.” (Luke 22:39-46 ESV)

Corey focused in on verse 45. When Jesus finished praying, He returned to the disciples and He found them sleeping for sorrow. He woke them up and instructed them again to pray that they may not enter temptation. One of the questions Corey asked us was, “What is the temptation?”

As we thought about it, the temptation is to react to what’s going on around us by self insulating or self medicating instead of the circumstances driving us to pray. They chose self insulating / self medicating with sleep. As Corey brought that up, my heart was pierced, because I remembered so many times I chose the same thing.

The disciples were used to Jesus coming to pray. Prayer was built into the rhythm of His life, as we see in verse 39, “As was his custom,” he went to pray. Jesus went to pray regularly, not just when things get hard. So, when the difficult time came, He just did what He always does. He prayed.

We Also Live In a Weighty Hour

The disciples could feel the weight of the hour. Jesus instructed them to PRAY they would not enter temptation. In other words, don’t self insulate, don’t self medicate, but pray! We see the stark differences between Jesus’ prayer and the disciples. Jesus went a short distance away to pray, to truth tell with God, to bare His soul to Him, to agonize. He was honest with God as He prayed for the cup to be removed. I feel like Jesus showed His humanity in that moment, and as the temptation to self-preservation presented itself, He faced the reality of what was coming. But, He prayed, “Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done.” (verse 42) Here’s the honest truth about what is going on inside me, however,  I’ll do whatever You want me to do. After that, an angel was sent to give Him strength, and “being in agony, he prayed more earnestly.” (verse 44)

When faced with the same weightiness as the disciples, Jesus leaned into God, shared His fears, committed to God’s will, and prayed even though He was in agony. James, Peter, and John, however, allowed sorrow to put them to sleep. They were found “sleeping from sorrow.”

Going back to the original thought God has been stirring in me lately, I keep wondering if there are places I don’t realize I’m sleeping from sorrow. Are there places in the Church we are sleeping from sorrow? We are also in a weighty hour. There are pressures coming from every side, and some of us have grown weary. The Church, the Bride of Christ, is being attacked both from the outside and from inside. Jesus is coming back for a Bride without spot or wrinkle, but she seems like a pipe-dream.

Do We Trade Sleep For the Awakening God Desires for Us?

How can we discern if we don’t wake up? How can we agonize in prayer if we love to stay insulated in our warm cozy beds?

In Proverbs 20:12-13 the English Standard Version it says:

12 The hearing ear and the seeing eye,    

the Lord has made them both.

13 Love not sleep, lest you come to poverty;    

open your eyes, and you will have plenty of bread.

We don’t hear with our ears and see with our eyes when we are asleep. Sleep is obviously a rhythm designed to renew, rest, and refresh the human body and mind, however the proverb cautions us not to love it. In fact, the word for sleep in this passage has roots in the Hebrew word “yāšan,” which can mean to cause to sleep or entice to sleep. It even has connections to festering leprosy. This is a sleep that is outside the rhythm of body-refreshing rest. Instead, it’s sleep that’s out of season or out of alignment with it’s purpose.

Sleep is vital for humans. However, we must not fall into the trap of using sleep to cope with the heaviness of the time. We can’t love sleep itself. The Apostle Paul was also very familiar with living in a weighty time. In his letter to the Galatians, Paul exhorts them,

“Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we don’t give up.” (Galatians 6:9 NIV)

I believe the Lord is waking up His Church, and He is calling us to alertness. I believe He’s inviting us into a reset where we stop seeing sleep as a reward for hard work, or a goal to achieve. As we allow Him to place sleep back into alignment with His design, we will be rested and able to respond to His call to PRAY!

Heal and Restore Our Sleep

Lord, I ask for You to restore sleep to it’s intended place in our lives. Keep us from sleeping from sorrow. Stir us to prayer instead of sleeping when we face the weightiness of the hour we live in Restore the rhythm of rest to us, and help us stop seeking it and using it as a reward. Help us sleep, speak to us in our sleep, heal our sleep. Where we have experienced insomnia, restore healthy sleep to our bodies. Where we have bad habits of working way too much, expecting too much from ourselves, and that has cut into our rhythms of rest, I ask that You help us to plan our lives using more healthy standards. I ask that You would help us to value what You value, and I believe You value us respecting Your creations and Your ways. If You designed us for rest, help us to rest without guilt. Come and heal our minds, our habits, and our ways. Invite us into Your rest, and help us respond.

We desire to have healthy night time habits so You can come and speak to us in our sleep, give us dreams, and restore our soul, body, and spirit.

We want to be awake and alert in the daylight hours so we can be responsive to Your influence in our lives. Help us be rested, happy, healthy, fulfilled, and able to say Yes to You.

Thank You, Lord. We pray all this in the mighty and strong name of Your Son, Jesus Christ, whom we follow in order for our lives to look like His life. Thank You for the pattern, the paradigm, You left us with in Your Precious Son.

I hope you ponder the role of sleep in your life, and share this with someone who could use some encouragement in the area of sleep. I encourage you to pray for healing in sleep for yourself and your friends. I know I have plenty of friends who struggle with sleep for various reasons. I don't want us to accept that as normal any more, prayer works!