Sanctified or Just Sleep Deprived?

By reglerjoe @ http://orangechuck.blogspot.com/

What’s So Holy About Fatigue?

There seems to be a notion, popular in certain segments of Baptist fundamentalism, that sleep deprivation is a means to holiness.

Honestly…I don’t get it.

I do appreciate a good tired feeling – one that comes from an honest day’s work.

Ecc. 5:12 - “The sleep of a laboring man is sweet…”

But I hate chronic fatigue. Hate it.

The Pharisees had their disfugured, unwashen faces, and we have our baggy, blood-shot eyes. The notion that fatigue equals holiness has grown popular from a few oft repeated and misunderstood IFB maxims, made popular by pastors and preachers of some notoriety. Here’s a sampling:

“Work with men while men are awake; walk with God while men are asleep.” (What about my need for sleep? Can I walk with God during business hours, or must I confine my devotional life to the graveyard shift?)

I well recall a young and zealous evangelist proclaiming to my congregation during a sermon, “You don’t need more than 6 hours of sleep! Get up early and walk with God!”

Another preacher has said, “Where does the Bible say you need 8 hours of sleep? Get up and walk with God, you lazy bum!”

I have a confession to make: I need 8 hours of sleep. I can function on 6. I can even survive on 3 if I have to. But for optimum performance, I need 8 hours.

Listen (especially you young Bible college students out there) there’s nothing holy about being tired. Nothing. Self-imposed fatigue is not a mark of sanctification; it’s a mark of stupification. Going to bed at 11 PM or 12 AM and getting up at 4 AM to read your Bible isn’t smart. You’ll just wake up again at 6 AM drooling on your Bible.

We read about the old divines who would get up before dawn and walk with God, and we think, “That’s what I should do!” But some have failed to realize that those old divines didn’t go to bed after David Letterman. If we desire to emulate their prayer life, we should consider emulating their schedule: early to bed; early to rise.

Most of us have been challenged when we read what Spurgeon said about John Knox’s prayer life:

“… the Protestant cause dreaded the prayers of Knox more than they feared armies of ten thousand men. The famous Welch was also a great intercessor for his country; he used to say “he wondered how a Christian could lie in his bed all night and not rise to pray.” When his wife fearing that he would take cold, followed him into the room to which he had withdrawn, she heard him pleading in broken sentences, “Lord, wilt thou not grant me Scotland?” O that we were thus wrestling at midnight, crying, “Lord, wilt thou not grant us our hearers’ souls?”

Would God that all of His ministers had that kind of passion in prayer! But notice: John Knox didn’t set his alarm clock to go off every three hours in order that he could rise to pray. He was awakened, and even kept awake, by his burden for the lost. Pray that God would grant you Knox’s passion – the midnight prayer sessions will follow accordingly. Don’t force it. You’ll end up with a passionless, mechanical season of prayer, punctuated by the occasional nodding off. In the morning you’ll not be any more the example of John Knox. You’ll just be really tired.

A word of advice: if you are getting 8 hours of sleep, but you’re not walking with God, the answer is not to get less sleep. The answer is to learn to prioritize. Learn how to go to bed early. Usually, there’s not much going on in the average American home after 9:00 PM except television…or perhaps…blogging? OUCH!

Preacher, you need your rest. You’ll pray more fervently, study more seriously, preach more passionately, and labor more fruitfully.

I leave you with a rather long quote from Spurgeon’s Lectures To My Students. In the chapter titled “The Minister’s Fainting Fits", he speaks to the need for rest in general, including our need for R & R, but I think what he says is appropriate for our discussion regarding sleep deprivation. Enjoy:

“The bow cannot be always bent without fear of breaking. Repose is as needful to the mind as sleep to the body. Our Sabbaths are our days of toil, and if we do not rest upon some other day we shall break down. Even the earth must lie fallow and have her Sabbaths, and so must we. Hence the wisdom and compassion of our Lord, when he said to his disciples, “Let us go into the desert and rest awhile.” What! when the people are fainting? When the multitudes are like sheep upon the mountains without a shepherd? Does Jesus talk of rest? When Scribes and Pharisees, like grievous wolves, are rending the flock, does he take his followers on an excursion into a quiet resting place? Does some red-hot zealot denounce such atrocious forgetfulness of present and pressing demands? Let him rave in his folly. The Master knows better than to exhaust his servants and quench the light of Israel. Rest time is not waste time. It is economy to gather fresh strength. Look at the mower in the summer’s day, with so much to cut down ere the sun sets. He pauses in his labor — is he a sluggard? He looks for his stone, and begins to draw it up and down his scythe, with “rink-a-tink — rink-a-tink — rink-a-tink.” Is that idle music — is he wasting precious moments? How much he might have mown while he has been ringing out those notes on his scythe! But he is sharpening his tool, and he will do far more when once again he gives his strength to those long sweeps which lay the grass prostrate in rows before him. Even thus a little pause prepares the mind for greater service in the good cause.”