He giveth His beloved sleep.
And last night for the second time this week, He didn't. I realized while siting on the kitchen floor at 2:30 in the morning last night, that sleep is a gift, not a given. Even if you work hard and lay your head down on a soft pillow, sleep can elude you. It can evade your best efforts. As I laid in bed with my mind spinning, I couldn't catch sleep. I became aware of every movement and muscles twitch. I felt my heartbeat like a ticking clock in an unfamiliar bedroom. Like a leaky faucet, it kept the rhythm of the night and I couldn't ignore it. Eventually, by 2 AM, I gave up and got up. So I found myself again sitting on the kitchen floor, reading and thinking and praying and reflecting and trying to fall asleep.
I contemplated how I've always imagined myself intelligent. I was given the gift of a high self-esteem from a young age. I was told I was smart and I believed them. This in all likelihood made it possible for me to achieve as much as I did in my education. But I am realizing I don't know much and definitely less than I thought I did. I'm not particularly intelligent. I have a good mind for remembering certain facts and details which reads as intelligent, but I have a difficult time thinking on my feet or putting things together in the heat of the moment. I never learned how to think. I was pretty good at learning what to think and could score well on standardized tests, but generating arguments based on logic and reason were not my forte'. Knowledge and wisdom, like sleep, are gifts from God. You can do your best to achieve them, but at the end of the day, they can only be received by grace through faith in God alone. If you grab hold of knowledge instead of opening your hand to receive it, you do not gain insight. Wisdom is a gift of God. It is bestowed, not stolen.
Ecclesiastes 2:24
24
There is nothing better for a man, than that he should eat and drink, and that he should make his soul enjoy good in his labour. This also I saw, that it was from the hand of God.
God's gifts can only be enjoyed by the gift of appreciation. The ability to enjoy what we have is itself a gift from God. Modernity may accumulate lots of stuff, but the ability to enjoy cannot come from hard work, determination or technology. God grants gratitude and enjoyment. If He doesn't, we can do all kinds of things and never enjoy any of them. We can obtain all kinds of things and never enjoy them. The gifts of God cannot be enjoyed without another gift of God: gratitude.
*On a side note, we were supposed to leave for vacation today. Our annual trek to South Dakota had been slotted to begin today with our usual road trip beginning before the crack of dawn and ending near midnight in Custer, SD. If I had to be up most of the night, I would have rather have been driving and on vacation. It's been a long stretch since I have taken any time off of work and I always look forward to our annual trip to South Dakota. This year, however, our typical hosts are unable to accommodate us. The only thing that makes the trip feasible is the free place to stay. So with that option off the table, the vacation fell by the wayside as well. That is disappointing,but God is sovereign and is providing us with all kinds of unexpected opportunities to enjoy family time in the Kraken during this COVID season. It isn't a replacement per se for our typical South Dakota adventure, but it's not nothing and I'm doing my best to receive with gratitude what I'm being given. There is no hope to be found anywhere else. We receive what God provides and count it as our very best. He does not withhold any good things from those who love Him. I love Him and count everything I have (or don't) as good because it's Giver is Good. There is no other standard by which goodness can be measured. So while I'd rather be on vacation today than typing, I'd rather be typing here by God's design than on the road by mine.
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