I lay down and slept;
i woke up again for the Lord sustained me
i woke up again for the Lord sustained me
I've been very taken with this verse since Joe sent it to me in a text the other week.It's simple, short and sweet, but i think it tells us a lot about our God, and i just want to reflect on that.
1) 'I lay down and slept'. We need to sleep, even David, when he's on the run from Absalom, presumeably fearing for his life, he still needed to sleep. We can't do it all by ourselves, we can't even sustains ourselves for very much time, let alone a lifetime or an eternity, we need someone who can.
2) 'The Lord sustained me'. Who can sustain us? The Lord. Now, that might seem fairly obvious, but why should He sustain us? God can not bear to be near our sin, He hates it with an all consuming fire, with a holy passion, with feelings that we can not understand and with a hatred that would destroy us in an instance if we came into contact with it. And yet, 'the Lord sustained me'. David can write these words knowing their true. Knowing that the Lord has sustained him through the night. So why? Because of His great love and mercy. Because of His concern for His glory. Something especially evident in David. If the Lord hadn't sustained him through that particular night, or indeed any night, the promise He made to Abraham would be under serious threat. But our God doesn't break His promises, He can't, He won't. But then, what is man that the Lord is mindful of him. Lets take a second to look at that. It says in Colossians 1:17 that 'in Him, all things hold together'. All things. All things. The millions of chemical reactions needed to get the suns heat from the depths of space to us. About 400,000,000 tonnes of hydrogen are being turned into helium every single second in our sun. 400,000,000 tonnes! Every second! And ours isn't the only big star in the universe! And yet He chooses to sustain us through the night! Wow...what an amazing God we worship!
3) Genesis 2:2 tells us that when He had finished creation, God rested. Hebrews 4:1-6 tells us that entering this rest is the point of our salvation. Entering into rest with God, on the seventh day which never ended. But God never sleeps. We need sleep because we are not God, but God, who is working far harder than anyone never sleeps, is omnipresent and omnipotent. So He will always sustain us in times of trouble, times which David was going through when He wrote this. While David slept the Lord kept a watchful and protective eye over him, confounding his enemies and keeping His servant safe. So, not only will God sustain me tonight, on a level which i need it when i sleep safe in my warm, lovely double bed in Reading, He will also sustain those who are under attack, who are not safe or warm. I don't think David is talking about simple nutritional sustainment here, as much as the protection he needed to be sustained from his enemies during the night. So as God sustains the billions of chemical reactions needed to get the universe through another day, so also He will sustain those who are in peril, those who are under attack for His name, and those who love Him but tonight, for the time being are neither of those things.
What a wonderful, powerful, loving God we worship. What an assurance that is. Praise the LORD!
1) 'I lay down and slept'. We need to sleep, even David, when he's on the run from Absalom, presumeably fearing for his life, he still needed to sleep. We can't do it all by ourselves, we can't even sustains ourselves for very much time, let alone a lifetime or an eternity, we need someone who can.
2) 'The Lord sustained me'. Who can sustain us? The Lord. Now, that might seem fairly obvious, but why should He sustain us? God can not bear to be near our sin, He hates it with an all consuming fire, with a holy passion, with feelings that we can not understand and with a hatred that would destroy us in an instance if we came into contact with it. And yet, 'the Lord sustained me'. David can write these words knowing their true. Knowing that the Lord has sustained him through the night. So why? Because of His great love and mercy. Because of His concern for His glory. Something especially evident in David. If the Lord hadn't sustained him through that particular night, or indeed any night, the promise He made to Abraham would be under serious threat. But our God doesn't break His promises, He can't, He won't. But then, what is man that the Lord is mindful of him. Lets take a second to look at that. It says in Colossians 1:17 that 'in Him, all things hold together'. All things. All things. The millions of chemical reactions needed to get the suns heat from the depths of space to us. About 400,000,000 tonnes of hydrogen are being turned into helium every single second in our sun. 400,000,000 tonnes! Every second! And ours isn't the only big star in the universe! And yet He chooses to sustain us through the night! Wow...what an amazing God we worship!
3) Genesis 2:2 tells us that when He had finished creation, God rested. Hebrews 4:1-6 tells us that entering this rest is the point of our salvation. Entering into rest with God, on the seventh day which never ended. But God never sleeps. We need sleep because we are not God, but God, who is working far harder than anyone never sleeps, is omnipresent and omnipotent. So He will always sustain us in times of trouble, times which David was going through when He wrote this. While David slept the Lord kept a watchful and protective eye over him, confounding his enemies and keeping His servant safe. So, not only will God sustain me tonight, on a level which i need it when i sleep safe in my warm, lovely double bed in Reading, He will also sustain those who are under attack, who are not safe or warm. I don't think David is talking about simple nutritional sustainment here, as much as the protection he needed to be sustained from his enemies during the night. So as God sustains the billions of chemical reactions needed to get the universe through another day, so also He will sustain those who are in peril, those who are under attack for His name, and those who love Him but tonight, for the time being are neither of those things.
What a wonderful, powerful, loving God we worship. What an assurance that is. Praise the LORD!
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