Life on Planet Earth on Asleep

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Attending to God Through His Pain

Author

Keywords

Scripture

James 1:19, Proverbs 18:13, John 7:24, Matthew 7:1-2, Psalm 25:9

I (Rich) remember a time while serving as a young pastor at Peace Community Church. At the beginning of my sermon every single Sunday an elderly believer in the church tilted his head to the right and...

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Asleep at the Wheel

Author

Craig Brian Larson

Keywords

Sleep

Race car driver Dale Earnhardt was known for being so calm before races that occasionally he would take a catnap just before the start. While other drivers would have a pulse rate of 100 to 120 before...

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Guide us waking, O Lord, and guard us

Keywords

Guide us waking, O Lord, and guard us sleeping; that awake we may watch with Christ, and asleep we may rest in peace.

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A Deeper Look at Sleep

Author

Tish Harrison Warren

Keywords

Sleep reminds us of our helplessness. Asleep, we have nothing to commend us; we accomplish nothing to put on our resume. Because of this, sleep is a counter-formative practice that reminds us that our...

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Let Him Rest

Author

Benedicta Ward

Keywords

The following story comes from the collection of sayings of the Desert Fathers and Mothers in Egypt, teaching that would have first been transmitted orally (around 350-450 A.D.) and later written down...

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Fighting Sleep

Author

John Koessler

Keywords

Scripture

Psalm 4:8, Psalm 127:2, Proverbs 3:24, Job 11:18-19, Deuteronomy 33:12, Proverbs 3:5

When my eldest son, Drew, was a toddler, bedtime was a battleground in our house. I think he felt cheated by the prospect of sleep. He hated the thought of going to bed while the rest of the world con...

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Uneasy Lies the Head

Author

Greg Gilbert

Keywords

Scripture

Ecclesiastes 5:12, Proverbs 3:24, Matthew 11:28-30

It was William Shakespeare, in 1597, who had Henry IV complaining about the duties of kingship. “How many thousands of my poorest subjects,” the king lamented, “are at this hour asleep!” He goes on to...

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Author

Robert Louis Stevenson

Keywords

The man who forgets to be thankful has fallen asleep in life.

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Sticks & Stones in Your Bed

Author

Timothy Keller

Keywords

Scripture

Hebrews 12:6-7, James 1:2-4, Psalm 94:12-13, Proverbs 3:11-12, Romans 5:3-5

Years ago, I read an old fairy tale about a wicked witch who lived in a remote cottage in the deep forest. When travelers came through looking for lodging, she offered them a meal and a bed. It was th...

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Grant, almighty God, that as you shine

Author

John Calvin

Keywords

Grant, almighty God, that as you shine on us by your Word, we may not be blind at midday, nor willfully seek darkness, and thus lull our minds asleep: but, may we be roused daily by your words, and ma...

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Creation at Play

Author

Phillip Yancey

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 1:31, Exodus 31:1-5, Job 38:4-7, John 1:1-3 , Colossians 1:16-17, Psalm 8:3-4

Creation as it felt to God — since then every artist has felt an echo, a sympathetic vibration: a craftsman who squints at his finished product and reckons, “Very good”; a performer who cannot suppres...

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Finding Money

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Scripture

Philippians 4:12-13, Matthew 6:19-21, Proverbs 15:16, 2 Corinthians 6:10, Luke 12:13-21, Hebrews 13:5, 1 Timothy 6:10, Matthew 6:24, Luke 12:15

Honoré de Balzac, who would later gain fame as a celebrated writer in post-Napoleonic France, was known for his intricate characters and keenly realistic writing style. Like many young artists, he end...

liturgy

Inspired by Matthew 8

Author

Jacob Traeger

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 8:null

Lord God, We confess the smallness of our faith. At those times when our lives seem stormy we worry that you are asleep and don’t care about what happens to us. When things are going well, we are quic...

liturgy

Inspired by Psalm 8 (1)

Author

Richard Herman

Keywords

Scripture

Psalm 8:null

Lord, our Lord – How excellent is Your name in all the earth! From star to star and galaxy to galaxy, From pole to pole and horizon to horizon There is no place where Your glory is hidden, No-one and ...

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Inspired by Ezekiel 37:1-14 (1)

Keywords

Scripture

Ezekiel 37:1-14

Lifeless are our prayers. Dry and brittle are our spirits. Like Ezekiel’s valley of dry bones, we are a people without the sinews of goodness, the flesh of holiness, and the breath of righteousness. W...

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Psalm 121

Keywords

Scripture

Psalm 121:null

I lift up my eyes to the hills; from where is my help to come? My help comes from the LORD, the maker of heaven and earth. He will not let your foot be moved and he who watches over you will not...

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Arguments are Everywhere

Author

Buster Benson

Keywords

We argue with our alarm clock, which insists we wake up. We argue with our clothes that wear out or stop fitting. We argue with our bodies, we argue with our pets, we argue with bumps in the sidewalk ...

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The Key to Understanding Anger

Author

Robert Farrar Capon

Keywords

In his book The Mystery of Christ , a series of fictionalized pastoral counseling sessions (based on actual events), the Episcopal priest Robert Farrar Capon shares a number of helpful ways of unde...

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Sharing or Stealing Their Last Ration

Author

Harold J. Sala

Keywords

In 1908, Irish explorer Ernest Shackleton headed an Antarctic expedition attempting to reach the South Pole. They came closer than any before but, 97 miles short of the pole, had to turn back. In his...

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Finding their Way

Author

Kenneth E. Bailey

Keywords

Scripture

Psalm 23:null

In his excellent study of the famous Biblical passage on shepherds, ( The Good Shepherd: A Thousand Year Journey from Psalm 23 to the New Testament ) , scholar Ken Bailey provides helpful context t...

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A Dream of Immanuel

Author

James Bryan Smith

Keywords

Scripture

Isaiah 7:14, Matthew 1:23, John 1:14, Philippians 2:6-8, Hebrews 2:14, John 3:16

When he was a young boy, twelfth-century church leader Bernard of Clairvaux fell asleep outside a church while waiting to go in for a Christmas Eve service. In his sleep he had a dream, a kind of visi...

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Afraid of the Wolf Man

Author

Max Lucado

Keywords

When I was six years old, my dad let me stay up late with the rest of the family and watch the movie The Wolf Man. Boy, did he regret that decision. The film left me convinced that the wolf man spent ...

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Hearing the Confessions of the Poor

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

Keywords

Scripture

John 13:14-15, James 2:13, Isaiah 58:7, Matthew 5:3, Psalm 34:18, Luke 7:47-48

Angela’s Ashes took the publishing world by storm when it was released in September 1996. It won numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize in the category of Biography/Autobiography. It was also a...

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A History of “Boredom”

Author

Manoush Zomorodi

Keywords

Boredom

Scripture

Hebrews 10:24-25, Psalm 19:1, Isaiah 30:15, Psalm 46:10, Colossians 3:23, Romans 12:11

Teenagers whine about it constantly. Office mates step out multiple times a day to Starbucks to escape it. Parents die of it every night as they try to get small children to fall asleep. We use the wo...

liturgy

Lord Jesus, we have been slumbering

Author

Jacob Traeger

Keywords

Lord Jesus, we have been slumbering We have not expected you to be active in our lives And we have allowed ourselves to be distracted from your love We have not seen you in the lives of others And we ...

Quote

Author

Augustine of Hippo

Keywords

Watch, O Lord, with those who wake or watch or weep tonight, and give your angels and saints charge over those who sleep. Tend your sick ones, O Lord Christ. Rest your weary ones. Bless your dying one...

Quote

Author

John Donne

Keywords

One short sleep past, we wake eternally; and Death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

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I’ll Sleep in Heaven

Author

A. J. Swoboda

Keywords

The need for rest is greatly misunderstood by so many Christians in today’s world. I cannot count how many times I have heard a well – intended Christian leader say, “I’ll sleep when I get to heaven.”...

liturgy

Watch, dear Lord, with those who wake,

Author

Augustine of Hippo

Keywords

Watch, dear Lord, with those who wake, or watch, or weep [tonight], and give your angels charge over those who sleep. Tend your sick ones, O Lord Christ, rest your weary ones. Bless your dying one...

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Heavenly Sleep

Author

A. J. Swoboda

Keywords

Sleep

Relational needs are not a by – product of the fall. Likewise, the need for rest, or Sabbath, is not an aftertaste of human sinfulness, unlike our chronic inability to receive rest. In fact, as we sha...

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