Ever have trouble falling asleep at night, or once sleeping and awakened early been unable to go back to sleep? I had one of those early morning (3:00 AM) awakenings this week, with my mind racing on things yet to do on my current project.
Here’s a prayer for a restful, restoring sleep from “The Valley of Vision”. Apparently the Puritans had similar problems hundreds of years ago. As we read in Ecclesiastes 1:9, “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.”
Blessed Creator,
You have promised Your beloved sleep;
Give me restoring rest needful for tomorrow’s toil;
If dreams be mine, let them not be tinged with evil.
Let Your Spirit make my time of repose a blessed temple of His holy presence.
May my frequent lying down make me familiar with death, the bed I approach remind me of the grave, the eyes I now close picture to me their final closing.
Keep me always ready, waiting for admittance to Your presence.
May I hold life loosely in my hand, knowing that I receive it on condition of its surrender;
As pain and suffering betoken transitory health, may I not shrink from a death that introduces me to the freshness of eternal youth.
I retire this night in full assurance of one day awaking with You.
All glory for this precious hope, for the gospel of grace, for Your unspeakable gift of Jesus, for the fellowship of the Trinity.
Withhold not Your mercies in the night season; Your hand never wearies, Your power needs no repose, Your eye never sleeps.
Help me when I helpless lie, when my conscience accuses me of sin, when my mind is harassed by foreboding thoughts, when my eyes are held awake by personal anxieties.
Show yourself to me as the God of all grace, love and power; You have a balm for every wound, a solace for all anguish, a remedy for every pain, a peace for all disquietude.
Permit me to commit myself to You awake or asleep.
From “The Valley of Vision” © 1975 The Banner of Truth Trust
