Resisting Waking Up

This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. (John 3:19-20)

It came to me as I was lying in bed this morning talking with God, that maybe one of the symptoms described here might have something to do with those times when I just don't want to get out of bed in the morning. I have thought about this issue over the years and pondered the various reasons that people resist waking up in the morning or getting out of bed even if they are awake.

I have had to be honest at times and admit, at least to myself, that sometimes when my life is crowded with fear or despair and is seriously lacking in joy that there are times when I really long to just go to sleep and forget about what is going on in my life. And if I manage to get enough sleep that is uninterrupted with disturbing dreams during those times, then I suddenly realize how precious that rest can be when I remember a few minutes after waking up what the real situation is that is threatening my peace. Then I wish that I could forget it again and return to that peaceful state of sleep or be oblivious to the things that are causing me to be afraid or maybe remorseful or condemned.

It is during those times of desperately wishing I could hide in sleep from life around me that I see a strong similarity with the words of Jesus in these verses. Most people prefer darkness when it comes time to sleep. It is not very easy for most of us to sleep well in the light of day unless we are very tired. The human body seems designed to sleep much better when it is dark and quiet around us. There is certainly nothing wrong with that and God knows that we need good sleep in order to continue to have health and strength for our human existence.

But there is no doubt that there are also times when sleep is craved for quite different reasons than just to recharge our body and rest our muscles. It is not uncommon for sleep to be viewed, though often subconsciously at first, as an escape mechanism for not facing uncomfortable reality. When this is utilized and repeated it can quickly become something along the line of an addiction reinforcing and deepening depression and leading to more and more dysfunction with those around us. It is not uncommon for people who become weakened by depression to fall into the addiction of trying to hide from life by withdrawing into sleep as much as possible.

This is not to create a guilt trip for someone, including myself, if we see this pattern in the life. It is simply to identify one of the possible ways that I may find myself loving darkness rather than the light so that I can bring the problem itself to the Light for exposure instead of staying away from it. In fact, a person who is trying to hide from life by staying asleep naturally resists the approach of increasing light for that very reason – it makes it more and more difficult to hide and avoid the pain associated with reality.

This is similar in nature to any other coping mechanism we may use to run away from the light of truth and reality. One of the common threads of every addiction is that in some way it gives us temporary pleasure which gives a short experience of satisfaction or at least numbness that turns off our cravings for peace that are becoming very demanding within our brain. But those moments of temporary pleasure or relief from the pain of unfulfilled cravings only last a few minutes at best and then leave us with even deeper cravings for satisfaction that now have to be dealt with all over again. As most people know, addictions by nature reinforce themselves by increasing the hunger more than increasing the satisfaction and so end up becoming a means of destroying ourselves.

This is really a summary of the core problem of sin overall. Sin is any way in which we try to bring life into our lives without receiving it from the only valid Source of real life. It is the counterfeit system of living that seems very often to get much more immediate results as far as our feelings go but in the long run leave us with more pain and eventually destroys us completely. No matter whether we are willing to admit the truth of it or not, God's word is unfailingly accurate in this matter. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:23 RSV)

While all of this is true, how does that relate to me when I find myself quite resistant to waking up in the morning? I'm not talking about when I simply have had a very short night's sleep and have not had enough time realistically to recoup from a hard day's work. I am talking about those times when I become aware that my resistance to waking up has more to do with emotional hiding than it has to do with legitimate rest. I think most of us are aware of times when we find ourselves wishing we could just stay asleep permanently and continue to hide from life but without committing suicide. But really, this kind of feeling is a precursor to thinking about suicide.

What does this passage have to say to me in regards to this part of my life? How can I open my heart to the words of Jesus here and allow them to re-orient my thinking and choices when it comes to those times when I would rather hide from waking up than to face life when it is not something I want to face? And what relationship do evil deeds and fear of being exposed have to do with this? Is it possible that maybe my situation is actually quite different in God's eyes than I perceive it to be when I would rather hide in sleep than to live and have to face the day?

Maybe what I really need is a complete overhaul of my perception of reality. Maybe it is very possible that the things that I fear and would rather imagine were not there are not really the most important things in my life as they assert themselves to be. In fact, I believe that it is in those times that my real problem is not what I think my problem is at all but is the issue of having a picture of God that is far too small and weak and incompetent to deal with the problems that are asserting themselves in my life.

I realize that intellectually, with my mind, I can believe that God is big enough to handle any problem. I have been trained all my life to give the right answers to these questions and even back them up with Bible verses at times. But when it comes right down to actually facing real-life problems and trials that threaten to cause me pain and discomfort or even death, it is a whole different matter as to really knowing what my true beliefs are, that are much deeper and reside in a different part of my brain.

This is where it starts to become quite evident that I often am a double-minded person as described in James chapter 1. Being double-minded means to hold two opposing opinions at the same time. It is very much like trying to drive a care with the front steering wheels aimed radically in two different directions. It not only becomes extremely difficult to drive in a desired direction consistently but it can become downright dangerous or even deadly if one were to try to drive at high speeds under these conditions.

Ed Smith explains this very well in his video teaching series called Theophostic Prayer and the Refining of Belief. This is a three-part presentation on this passage in James about trials and is one of the best that I have ever heard. We watched the first part again yesterday with another person after church which reminded me of these things in relation to the verses I am now looking at. I find it very relevant to put these two important truths together to expose some of the areas where I am still stymied in my desires to live more in peace and harmony with God under highly stressful situations.

I recently found myself confronted with a situation that caused me intense fear and continues to pressure me with fear each day. Once again I had to start reminding myself to focus on God and His attributes as a way of dealing with the debilitating effects of that intense fear in my life. But it also highlighted the fact that I still have not dealt with the much deeper hidden roots that allow this fear to so easily ignite again and again. I cannot blame the current triggers for this fear as the real cause of my lack of peace if I really want to live free. I must have God take me to the original sources of these fears and receive the needed healing required by receiving His truth if I want to successfully face these kinds of situations in the future without being taken down by them so easily.

This is part of what has brought this issue of hiding in sleep to my attention at this time. I have noticed this pattern in my life for a number of years now and have wondered about it in various ways. I have even observed at times that under certain situations of very uncomfortable confrontation I am tempted to suddenly become very sleepy. This also happens sometimes when I come under conviction I would rather avoid. I think that this is not at all unlike how the disciples must have felt when Jesus asked them to pray with Him for one hour in the Garden of Gethsemane. It says that their eyes were very heavy with sleep.

I don't think this heaviness was just due to the fact that it was nighttime and thus was bedtime for them. I believer firmly that this was clearly a situation where sleep was a convenient escape for them from the intense emotional and spiritual pressure they were under and because they did not resist it firmly in favor of seeking God and remembering the words of Jesus, it overtook them and robbed them of the very preparation needed for what happened immediately following. In essence, they were loving darkness rather than light. They loved sleep more than they loved Jesus and the result was that they did not have the perspective or the courage to remain loyal to Jesus when things really began popping around them with fear.

Again, I am not implying in the slightest that we should rob ourselves of needed rest and sleep when sleep is appropriate and needed. But because sleep seems so innocuous and innocent it can easily become a Trojan Horse of sorts in our lives when used as a means of escape when we should be turning to God for true perspective and needed joy strength. Just as at certain times drugs may have a legitimate purpose for restoration of health in our lives but are often abused to give us pleasure or escape, so too can sleep be used in a similar way. These are all part of the same pattern described in these verses as ways to gravitate toward darkness instead of moving uncomfortably toward the light that will expose us.

But it is only in choosing to move closer to the Light no matter how uncomfortable it initially feels that we will discover that the Light is the only place where we can find real satisfaction, peace and security. Only the light of heaven can give us the kind of life and hope and resolution to the pain that we are trying so desperately to hide from in sleep, in addictions or in any other kind of avoidance behaviors.

...those who perish... did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved. (2 Thessalonians 2:10)

But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God. (John 3:21 NIV)