What is sleep in these changing times? It is simply a vehicle for time travel; it carries me from one day to the next. I do not wake up refreshed (though I take joy for the brief moment when my head hits the pillow and I go from wakefulness to dreams) and my dreams only tire out my mind and make my journey seem arduous.
Sleep is not rest; Christ is rest. Too much sleep and you are a sluggard, too little and you are ineffective. Who ever achieves the perfect amount of sleep? Is the perfect amount achievable; does it even exist? I sleep for the conventional 8 hours: I do not feel rested. I sleep for 12 hours: I do not feel rested. I sleep for 5 hours: I am exhausted.
What, then, is sleep to me? It is a necessity, for when I grow exhausted my mind is weakend, my resolve attenuates, and I am left with only my flesh to battle temptation. I might as well leave a steak to battle a lion or a drop of water to battle a tsunami. So then, sleep is a vehicle for strength from God, but it is not true rest. It is a shadow of the rest to come...or is it?
Someone argued that sleep is good. Perhaps, but surely we will not sleep in heaven. We have no use for it there which means sleep is a grace granted by God to a fallen world. Rest in Christ means we will be able to worship tirelessly for an eternity. Isn't sleep more a shadow of death than it is of rest? When you sleep your thoughts are reduced to almost nothing, hours pass by as if only seconds, and you expend the least amount of energy. Death is the pinnacle of sleep; your thoughts are no more, time is no more, and you no longer expend your energy.
Therefore, sleep is bittersweet to me. Sweet because it helps me combat sin, bitter because it is not true rest (only a shadow of death). So then, I sleep to fight sin, knowing my true rest is in heaven with Christ.
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