By Reverend Donn Brammer

Soon we are going to be going back to ‘regular time,’ meaning that Daylight Savings Time is coming to an end. Most people don’t mind the fact that we get an extra hour of sleep this Saturday night, but they do resent that it is now going to start getting dark during our lunch hour.

I mention this because if you’ve ever read the first chapter of Genesis then you probably noticed something strange. Not just how things were created, or the order in which they were created, but ‘when’ they were created. Right there in 1:5 “…and there was evening and there was morning, one day.” In the creation account the order is always the same. Each day in creation begins with evening. The Jewish Sabbath begins not at sunrise but sundown.

Someone noted that in this way the Bible helps us to remember that everything does not depend on us. When we go to sleep, God goes to work. The world keeps spinning even though we are not there to manage it.

We are not called to stay up all night; we are called to trust in God. Let God handle it. Psalm 127:2 “In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat, for he grants sleep to those he loves.” (NIV) Anxiety has no place in the life of the faithful. God never calls on us to worry, God calls on us to trust.

Remember when Jesus and the disciples were on a boat in a storm? What was Jesus doing? Sleeping. The disciples were wide-awake with fear and worry. “How can you sleep at a time like this?” they asked Jesus.

Arranging to get enough sleep is an act of discipleship and trust. For that to happen we don’t need to set our clocks back, we need to set our lives back, to take a few moments to review our day with God, confessing where we need forgiveness and giving thanks for ways we were blessed, then closing our eyes and letting God go to work. When we do we wake up in the morning not only refreshed but also better able to witness and enjoy the wonders of God’s creation.