Sunday, July 26, 2009

Now I lay me down to sleep

"Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep, and if I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take."
We heard an old fashioned evangelist last night. It was my night to lead worship at the Union Gospel Mission so Tyler went with to run powerpoint and a traveling minister was there to preach. I led worship using old camp songs; he preached about camping in the wilderness. God uses all things to make it look like it was planned. He reminded us of old prayers; especially the lay me down to sleep prayer. How often we say things we don't really mean; well perhaps not that we don't mean but when things change, we change. Let me explain.
Most of us say some kind of a prayer as we are drifting off to sleep. For me it's the end of the day, refresher with God; kind of like a reviewal of the events, analyzing the good and figuring out how to handle the bumps in the road. But there are days when I do the "now I lay me down to sleep" kind of prayer. I like the prayer; I have nothing against it except it's meaning get's lost when we wake up. "Now I lay me down to sleep. " Sometimes going to bed is relief. Sometimes going to bed is because of exhaustion. Sometimes going to bed is because there is nothing left in the day. We lay ourselves down to sleep. We totally rely on God to handle putting us to sleep.
"I pray the Lord my soul to keep" If we have a living faith in God, this is a no brainer. If we really believe that He is keeping us 24/7 then praying that he keeps our soul during the night reminds us that God's work is pretty simple right now because we aren't fighting him. We pray that he keeps our soul when it's not active; are we praying that he keeps our soul when we wake up and are getting ready to do "our thing" for the day? Not always. It's more that we worry about what might happen during the night when we aren't conscious. We think that if we are not aware, God needs to be on call because we can't handle the situation. The reality of life is, we can't handle any situations regardless of our consciousness. We need God to keep our soul more during the awake hours because that's when we have the ability to really mess things up big time.
"If I did before I wake"... usually when we go to sleep it's dark. I never did like the dark. I'm not sure who told me there were boogy men under the bed, probably my older brothers, but it worked. I didn't like whoever or whatever was hiding under my bed ready to come out and grab me when it was dark. It I don't wake up, I definately need a little help;
"I pray the Lord my soul to take." If I don't wake up, heaven is the next best thing because in my mind it's dark in hell. Remember I don't like dark. I don't want to be somewhere in the dark if I die. I want to be where there is light. I want to be where there is peace. I want to be where there is God. The problem with the prayer is that in the morning when we wake up, it's not dark, the boogy man didn't get us, we take the reins back from God and say, "Okay- since I didn't die, I'm back in control for the day."
When in life do we actually begin praying what we believe?
Perhaps it would be better if we prayed,
"Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep, and If I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. And in the morning, when I rise, I won't attempt to run my life, The God who made me knows my needs, I'll simply pray and let Him lead."