The gift of rest/sleep…

 The gift of rest/sleep….

Sleeping/resting in a sleeper train car over 50 years ago was a bit difficult…we were returning from Montreal, riding the Canadian National Railroad… had been attending a Geological Conference…I was pregnant, tired and ready to get home…

The trip was beautiful, the scenery sliding by at a rapid pace…going from cities, rural, “outback”, prairies, forests, lakes, mountains and finally arriving in .Vancouver, BC…

My parents in law were on the other side of a thin partition dividing the room by night…my father in law had a very deep, very penetrating loud voice-no whispering…so when he talked, you heard…consequently, no sleep even with ear plugs…both my husband and I were exhausted when we finally arrived  home…

Sleep…that sometimes elusive part of life…for me…having been raised in the country as an only child, I needed and still need quiet to go to sleep…my husband, the youngest of a family of boys, could sleep anywhere, anytime…we learned each other’s needs quickly after marriage…one of the growing times…

Lately, sleep has been a bit elusive…and was thinking about 

Bible times and characters, the topic of sleep in the Word…

God rested, not that He needed it, but as an example that what he created needed it…those days after a week of work, winter time gives rest before the abundance of spring…it is a healthy thing to do…

God provides sleep, rest, sustaining, refreshment…

Jesus needed rest after arduously helping and healing the crowds…even in the storm…

  We do need rest…and Thank YOU …

 By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.

 Gen.2.2-3

 I lie down and sleep;I wake again, because the Lord sustains me.

Ps.3.5

 The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.     He makes me lie down in green pastures,he leads me beside quiet waters,     he refreshes my soul.He guides me along the right pathsfor his name’s sake.

Ps.23.1-3

 I will refresh the weary and satisfy the faint.” At this I awoke and looked around. My sleep had been pleasant to me.

 Jer.31.25-26

 Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”

 Matt.8:20

 Suddenly a furious storm came up on the lake, so that the waves swept over the boat. But Jesus was sleeping.

Matt.8.24

 When he came back, he again found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy. So he left them and went away once more and prayed the third time, saying the same thing. Then he returned to the disciples and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Look, the hour has come, and the Son of Man is delivered into the hands of sinners.

Matt.26.43-45

https://healthysleep.med.harvard.edu/healthy/matters/benefits-of-sleep

Reside, Rest…Ben Potter

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FArhuOLHDo

Relaxing in Worship…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XjU_oynw3w