Sleep through anything – Devotion for
My son Aaron was born in the middle of a hurricane. OK – maybe not in the middle of one, but he was born on September 13, 1999, which was 2 days before Hurricane Floyd hit North Carolina. Aaron came home from the hospital on the day that the hurricane came ashore, and needless to say, Aaron’s first night at home was full tilt . . . or at least that’s what my wife tells me. You see, child birth is a difficult thing to go through, and I was incredibly tired from the experience of watching my child being born, so when we finally got him home, I was ready to get some much deserved sleep. Knowing that the hurricane was likely to come inland to where we lived, I took care of everything that I could outside, putting away the grill and some outside chairs. I moved our cars because where we parked was near some trees that could potentially fall on them. Everything was set, so I helped get Jacob ready for bed (who wasn’t quite 2 at the time), I helped get Jennifer and Aaron settled, and off to bed I went. Apparently Jennifer was up and down a bit that night – I wouldn’t know because I was sleeping. At some fateful hour Jennifer got up with Aaron because he was apparently hungry (who knew?), and she took him out to the living room to feed him. As she sat in the rocking chair near the front window, she was amazed at the power of the storm as it was really bearing down. The lightning and thunder – the howling winds – she was amazed that anyone at all could sleep . . . anyone except me. As she was listening to the sounds outside she began to hear a strange noise – sort of a “popping” sound. She thought to herself, “What in the world is that noise?” Suddenly, something just told her to get up and away from the window, which was a wonderful thing, because one of our neighbors large oak trees fell and broke the front window. The front window where she had just been sitting. Sitting holding our newborn baby. Glass strewn all over the chair and the living room. Jacob comes out screaming and crying after hearing the tremendous sound. Me? Still sound asleep, that is until Jennifer came in and woke me up.
Are you a sound sleeper? We know that Jesus was. One of my favorite passages is Matthew 8:23-27, where Jesus is on the boat with his disciples and a storm comes up, and waves are covering the boat. The disciples are terrified, but Jesus is down below sleeping. As the wind howls and the waves batter the sides of the boat – as the disciples are up top screaming and hollering at each other over the sounds of the wind and water – Jesus is down catching some Z’s. How was it that Jesus could sleep? Well one could argue that since he was God that he already knew that everything would be OK, and that argument truly does make sense, as obviously Jesus knew that his death was intended to be something much more meaningful than drowning in the sea. But I like to think that Jesus was able to sleep in the face of the storm because ultimately Jesus was resolved to the will of God. I believe that when we find ourselves at peace with God in the midst of whatever storms we face, we will find peace in the midst of the storm, and be able to sleep through anything.
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