I could not fix my
problem.
I struggle with
insomnia. Not just losing a few hours of
sleep here and there every month or so, but fear based, fight or flight mode
adrenaline, lose months of sleep insomnia.
Often I joke that I came out of the womb with insomnia (ask my poor
mother, she’ll tell you how I did not sleep for the first four years of my
life) but in the midst of it, it never feels like cause for laughter. Sleep comes only when my body eventually
gives up to grab a few hours before the alarm goes off and I’m required to make
it through another day. Home remedies,
OTC sleep aides, chamomile tea…you name it, I tried it, and they all failed.
I was hopeless to change
anything, and often I found myself in despair.
Then God graciously gave
me relief. I can’t pinpoint one day or
one breakthrough, but the attacks eased, the fear calmed, and sleep came. For a full year I lived alone without a
severe bout of insomnia, something unheard of for me before, and I can hardly
remember the last time I experienced the suffocating weight of an anxiety
attack.
These two particular
struggles and their subsequent relief (no matter how brief) remain a mystery to
me; threatening forces I neither understand nor have ability to fight, that
once sucked away energy, and threatened my joy.
But the thing is there are no mysteries with God. In fact, He is the God of all mysteries.
In my local church we
are going through the book of Daniel.
Last week we studied the passage in which King Nebuchadnezzar asked all
the wise men to interpret a dream he did not understand. The catch was that he also wanted them to tell him what it was. When they
could not reveal this mystery, he ordered that they all be killed. In steps Daniel. He himself could not perform the task for the
king, but the God he served could. Not
only was the captive Israelite able to tell the king his dream, but he was also
able to offer the interpretation: the
kingdoms of this world will fall, but an everlasting one is coming, one that
will fill the whole earth.
A comforting
interpretation for King Nebuchadnezzar, this was not, yet he promoted Daniel
because of it and worshiped his God.
Why? Really I can only guess but
I think it was because this proved that the God of Israel is in fact the God of
mysteries, and if so this was a God that deserved honor: “Surely your God is a
God of gods and a Lord of kings and a revealer of mysteries, since you have
been able to reveal this mystery.” Daniel 2:47
My own struggles in this
world, big and small, are often somewhat mysterious to me. I don’t know the future, I worry far too much
about it and my decisions, I am a finite creature…but I worship an infinite
God, the God of mysteries, and by His grace I am His child. So whether this relief I am experience is
forever or only temporary, I can rest in His arms, know that nothing is beyond
His understanding, and that one day in the true kingdom I will experience true
rest with my Heavenly Father.
Daniel 2:19-23
19
Then the mystery was revealed to Daniel in a night vision. Then Daniel
blessed the God of heaven; 20 Daniel said,
For wisdom and power belong to Him.
21 “It is He who changes the times and the epochs;
He removes kings and [ab]establishes kings;
He gives wisdom to wise men
And knowledge to [ac]men of understanding.
22 “It is He who reveals the profound and hidden things;
He knows what is in the darkness,
And the light dwells with Him.
23 “To You, O God of my fathers, I give thanks and praise,
For You have given me wisdom and power;
Even now You have made known to me what we requested of You,
For You have made known to us the king’s matter.”
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