Recently, I was in a conversation with a little boy of perhaps eight or nine. And when I asked him if he ever prayed/talked to God, his answer made me smile. He said, “Yeah. But it doesn’t always work. I guess sometimes He’s asleep.”

I was happy to report to the boy that God never sleeps. Psalm 121 immediately sprang into my mind: 

I lift up my eyes to the hills.

    From where does my help come?

2 

My help comes from the Lord,

    who made heaven and earth.

3 

He will not let your foot be moved;

    he who keeps you will not slumber.

4 

Behold, he who keeps Israel

    will neither slumber nor sleep.

5 

The Lord is your keeper;

    the Lord is your shade on your right hand.

6 

The sun shall not strike you by day,

    nor the moon by night.

7 

The Lord will keep you from all evil;

    he will keep your life.

8 

The Lord will keep

    your going out and your coming in

    from this time forth and forevermore.

Because of his age, I didn’t cite this passage that has brought me so much comfort. But I did share with him that God sometimes doesn’t answer our prayers in the way we envision. But time spent getting to know Him through His word and observing His faithfulness helps us to trust Him more and more, even when things don’t go the way we expect or hope.

I think we’ve all had the experience of seemingly unanswered prayers. 

And lately, the whole world seems to be devolving into chaos yet again. (I know it’s not the first time, and it won’t be the last…)

It’s so easy to let fear take over some days. And sometimes begin to imagine that God surely cannot be aware of all that’s going on. 

In our frailty and tendency to wander from the truth of God’s word, it’s easy fall into the trap of thinking He is either not present or not listening.

But thankfully, in so many ways God is not like us (His ways are higher than our ways—see Isaiah 55)). He is faithful when we are not. He is big and we are small. And while He set an example of rest at the end of His week of Creation, he possesses no such need as we have for regular rest.

Charles Spurgeon is credited with saying, “God gave us sleep to remind us we are not Him.” And when you think about the fact that we spend about a third of our life sleeping, it really drives the point home! We are. not. God. 

He is so much greater than any of our problems and we never have to worry about Him sleeping on the job. He’s not surprised or unaware of anything that is happening with any of His children. 

And He used a little one to remind me–and now you–of it.

Blessings,