Adventures in Sleep Deprivation and the God who Serves

So it's 4:01 am. F. Scott Fitzgerald said "In the dark night of the soul, it is always four o'clock in the morning." The only reason I know that is that it's the opening line of Ollie Hopnoodle's Haven of Bliss, the summer vacation sequel to the well-known Christmas Story of "you'll shoot your eye out" fame.

Pardon that rabbit trail. I've been awake since before 6 am, and since Wednesday morning, when I woke up around 10, I figure I've slept a total of 13 or so hours. 13 hours of sleep in 90 hours. That's a little low. Odd thing is I'm not all that tired. Saturday afternoon was another story. Ask Thomas Savage.

The reason I've been sleeping so little is that I've been moving. Something I don't particularly like to do, and am not really good at, but of necessity have become rather proficient. Interesting how this move is almost exactly one year to the day since my last move, and even more interesting how different this one feels. Then I was depressed and angry, moving into a tiny dump of an apartment reluctantly, and at a very inconvenient time of year, compounded by the fact the bike shop was in the middle of losing half our staff and I was headed out of town on vacation 3 days after my moving date. This one has some similarities, particularly that I've been invited on three different "vacations", if you will, in the past week. The huge difference this year is that I'm moving from probably the worst place I've ever lived into the best place (from what I can tell so far) I've ever lived:

• A brick house in an established neighborhood with a big yard full of hardwood trees (and poison ivy in the plant beds; who told them I love that stuff?)
• equal if not lower rent, once Thomas moves in
• TILE in the bathroom (America, why have you forgotten how to build houses?)
• a fireplace that doesn't run on gas
• built-in bookshelves in the living area (bring on the freebies, Mom, I've got more shelf space!)
• within walking distance of both church and work (if you see me driving to church in weather less severe than hail, you have my permission to slash my tires)

Perhaps all of this is the reason I'm not tired. I feel at rest, and energized. The old place gave me a palpable sense of restlessness, that I could never settle in. I never felt at home there, and thus never even finished unpacking from last June. I had boxes that sat on my floor for a year only to get loaded up for another move this week. The past year had a sense of ceaseless activity but never getting anything done, I think due in part to the location, more out of the way of where I need to be most days, so that travel took up just enough more of my time to keep me from ever adapting to my admittedly odd routine (I get around by bike 9 months out of the year and my work day starts at 10 am and ends after 10 pm with my nightshift watchman duties at WCCS). That the apartment was cheap and run down and had been smoked in (to the point that I could sometimes taste it when I was away and using something [water bottles are where I particularly noticed it] saturated in Yorkshire funk) didn't help matters either. It was almost oppressive. My spirit feels so much lighter and more hopeful to be done with that place. That is, as long as they don't shaft me on the security deposit refund, which I've heard they're good at.

As I thought about how eager I was to stay up this Sabbath eve until I completed the joyful but toilsome work of moving out of that piece of cursed earth, I remembered some things I was granted to see in Scripture a few weeks back that spoke to my on-going struggle with overwork, perfectionism, distraction, and late nights. Here's what I wrote about it to a friend . . .

God brought me to Psalm 132 this morning, in relation to our struggles with vain work related to Psalm 127 on the vanity of work that is not the Lord working...

132:1 Remember, O Lord, in David's favor,
all the hardships he endured,
2 how he swore to the Lord
and vowed to the Mighty One of Jacob,
3 “I WILL NOT ENTER MY HOUSE
OR GET INTO MY BED,
4 I will not give sleep to my eyes
or slumber to my eyelids,
5 UNTIL I FIND A PLACE FOR THE LORD,
a dwelling place for the Mighty One of Jacob.”

Praise God He succeeded in his toilsome work (sic, I was so excited to see this I forgot David actually didn't succeed in this plan he had, but even better, GOD took David's desire and did it for David, see 2 Samuel 7, which makes this even more pertinent to my situation: I feel "planted, dwelling in my own place and disturbed no more" 2 Samuel 7:10), as did his greater son, in whom we are being built into a dwelling place for God in the Spirit (Ephesians 2:19-22).

Continuing on in Psalm 132:

6 Behold, we heard of it in Ephrathah;
we found it in the fields of Jaar.
7 “Let us go to his dwelling place;
let us worship at his footstool!”

Ephrathah is Bethlehem. Do you hear echoes of Luke 2:4,8,15 like I do?
4 And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David . . .
8 And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night . . .
15 When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.” 16 And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in a manger . . .

Another concrete example of the wondrous scandal of the incarnation, as stated so succinctly by John 1:10-12 He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name

God comes into the world and there is no room for him even to have a decent birthplace . . . he is shut out in the cold so we might be brought in . . . sounds a lot like what God did for David: serve him, make him a house, give the people a secure place to dwell, etc.

Ps 132: 8 Arise, O Lord, and go to your resting place,
you and the ark of your might.
9 Let your priests be clothed with righteousness,
and let your saints shout for joy.
10 For the sake of your servant David,
do not turn away the face of your anointed one.

INDEED WE ARE CLOTHED with RIGHTEOUSNESS and HAVE REASON TO REJOICE! WE ARE WHERE GOD HAS CHOSEN to REST!!

Sorry I got carried away . . . Hope you're having a blessed day as you live as the dwelling place of God and build His kingdom on earth.

That was my message to Paul, but as I think about it in terms of how God actually dealt with David in grace, to promise to build him a house, I'm even more amazed . . . how often we beat our heads against the wall seeking to serve and work for God, when all along He is the one who

did awesome things that we did not look for,
you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence.
From of old no one has heard or perceived by the ear,
no eye has seen a God besides you,
who acts for those who wait for him.
You meet him who joyfully works righteousness (Isaiah 64:3-5)

Like RIGHT NOW as I write this. Wow. Or John and Vicki Talbot deciding they wanted to buy a house to rent to me when they heard my living situation wasn't the best. Or Jesus coming "not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many." This is the true and living God, and the good news about him that makes religion in all its forms so despicable and unappealing. Religion only works for God; the gospel of Jesus is that God works for us. To Him alone be glory.

There's so much more I want to write on this theme of the dwelling place of God and the incarnation, when God dwelt among us as a man with no dwelling place, a homeless man, as Rich Mullins sang, even related to Psalm 84, from which this blog takes its title. Here are a few texts to consider: Psalm 84:3, 5 and Luke 9:51, 57-58.