When God Puts Us To Sleep

I

n one of his poems, Edgar Allan Poe asks the following question:  “Is all that we see or seem but a dream within a dream?”  I can think of no better description of waking after surgery than this.  The effects of anesthesia last a long time after the patient initially goes under.  Hours after the surgery is over, the body begins to wake up and what an interesting process that is.

I remember waking up after heart surgery.  I could hear voices that sounded muffled, as if someone were speaking through a pillow.  I couldn’t make out exactly what they were saying and after a few moments of trying everything went black.  A few moments later (it was actually several hours later) I opened my eyes.  There were people in the room and everything was in a fog.  I remember seeing my mom and dad, the nurses, my pastor, and my doctor.  Then everything went black again.

Slowly, but surely, I began to wake up. My eyes stayed open longer, people began to talk more coherently, the fog lifted, and people’s movements came up to speed.  That’s when I began to notice the pain in my chest and I realized that something had really happened. I wasn’t the same person I had been just before the anesthesiologist worked his magic.  Whatever that stuff was, it was really good!

While I was asleep, a team of doctors opened my chest and repaired the hole that had caused my heart to work harder than necessary.  The surgery took several hours but they seemed like mere moments to me.  I remember being in the operating room getting ready for surgery and the next thing I knew, I was in Intensive Care unit, recovering.  I missed the whole thing!  But somehow, the pain in my chest reminded me I had been present all along.  I went to sleep one way; I woke up another.  The change had occurred during those few hours of forced sleep.

It shouldn’t surprise us to learn that God was the first anesthesiologist and the first surgeon.  The story of God’s creation of Eve from Adam’s rib has been told and retold from one generation to the next. Yet, if you stop and really think about that event, you will see that sometimes God causes us to sleep so he can work on the deepest areas of our lives.

Genesis 2:21-22 records the following, “So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place with flesh. Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.” 

We need to take closer look at the opening line of this passage.  Notice that Adam didn’t go to sleep on his own.  The scripture clearly states that God caused Adam to fall into a “deep sleep”.  There are times in life when God causes a deep sleep, a silence, a hush to fall over us.  We are not sure where he is, we don’t know what he’s doing, and we have no awareness that anything is being done in our lives.  It’s as if we are asleep spiritually, waiting for God to wake us up, to bring something new into our lives.

This is exactly what happened to Adam.  God needed to do some deep work in Adam’s life and he didn’t need Adam thrashing around, fighting him every step of the way.  Sound familiar?  So, God knocked him out.  He opened the man’s chest, withdrew a rib, and made a woman.  God created for Adam what he could never have imagined.  While he slept, while he was unaware of any activity, while life seemingly had stopped, God was working.  He was working to provide Adam’s need, a need Adam wasn’t even aware he had!

What a beautiful picture this is of God’s care for his children.  He is always watching over us, always taking notice of the events and circumstances of our lives.  He knows us better than we know ourselves and he is constantly aware of our needs even when we are not.  Jesus, himself, reminds us of this fact in Matthew 6:25-34.

Today, you may feel that you are spiritually asleep. It seems it has been forever since God spoke to you or moved in your life.  You wonder if he knows about you and perhaps you feel as if God no longer cares.  We all feel this way in our walk with the Lord, but we know that nothing is farther from the truth.  We serve a God who loves us, who cares for us, and who provides for us.  God does his best work during our moments of sleep.  He is busy even now meeting needs and preparing you for events you know nothing about.  We are never the same after a sleep session with God.  Like the patient after surgery, we find ourselves changed when God puts us to sleep.  Won’t you let him operate in your life today?