“I will lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone, O LORD, make me dwell in safety.”
~ Psalm 4:8
Hi James and Ellen,
Do you sometimes have trouble going to sleep? Your grandmaa does not like to go to bed early – like before eleven at night, because she sometimes cannot get to sleep if she goes to bed earlier. Your grandmaa says that she gets her best sleep in the morning – after your grandpaa has gotten out of bed. Are you a morning person like your grandpaa – who likes to get up real early in the morning or are you a night person – like your grandmaa, who does not like to get up early in the morning? How well do you sleep when you are not sleeping in your own beds? Your grandpaa says that he has an affinity with an air mattress and a sleeping bag. Your grandpaa can sleep anywhere at any time on an air mattress in a sleeping bag. Your grandmaa and grandpaa – and your dad and Aunt Lynn, when your dad and Aunt Lynn traveled with South America Mission summer teams that would spend over seven weeks in Bolivia, would at times stay and sleep in rural churches on air mattresses in sleeping bags that were sometimes laid directly on the floor of the church and at other times between two church benches that had one of the church benches facing the other church bench so that the sitting part of the two church benches faced each other – creating an almost perfect amount of space between the backs of the two church benches for an air mattress. Your grandpaa especially liked sleeping on an air mattress in a sleeping bag when it was raining. One time though in Portón, Bolivia – after your grandpaa decided to sleep in a house’s outside passage area, the air mattress that your grandpaa was sleeping on began to float. After your grandpaa had fallen asleep that night in Portón, it began to rain really hard. Rain water began to run down the side of the steep cliff that towers over Portón – forming mini rivers. One of these mini rivers began to stream through the outside corridor of the house where your grandpaa had decided to sleep. Your grandpaa woke up when the air mattress that he was sleeping on began to float and the sleeping bag in which he was sleeping in was being soaked with water.
Your grandmaa and grandpaa have had some very long nights together trying to get some sleep. During a visit that your grandmaa and grandpaa made to San Javiar, Bolivia, your grandmaa and grandpaa were offered a room to stay the night in that had a bulb that stayed on all through the night right outside the open window that was located right above the bed – which was a single bed versus a double bed, in which they were to sleep. Because the window did not have glass in it and it was not screened, bugs – like beetles, that were attracted to the light that was located right outside the window which was right above the bed in which your grandmaa and grandpaa were trying to sleep would fall through the window and on top of the sheet that your grandmaa and grandpaa were using to . . . the bugs would crawl around until they got under the sheet with your grandmaa and grandpaa. Your grandmaa and grandpaa would every so often have to get out of the bed, shake the sheet really good, brush off all the bugs that had crawled or fallen into the bed with your grandmaa and grandpaa and then try to go back to sleep again. The first night after your grandmaa and grandpaa took a South America Mission summer team that had come to Bolivia to an isolated Ayoré indigenous village called Zapoco got to be a really long night – especially for your grandpaa. Your grandmaa though went right to sleep – even though bats were flying loops above her head and rats were running relays up and down the closed, empty bookcase that had been built into the wall that was next to the single bed on which your grandmaa and grandpaa were sleeping. Your grandmaa and grandpaa had decided to sleep in the small room – on the single bed, in the crumbling old house that had been built by the South America Mission field team missionary couple who had lived Zapoco – leaving the Bolivia summer team guys and gals and the guys and gals who were traveling with the summer team to sleep together in what had once been the house’s living area on air mattresses under a mosquito netting. Before your grandmaa and grandpaa laid down on the bed in the small room where they had decided to sleep, your grandpaa stuffed one of his dirty shirts into the room’s broken window. Your grandpaa thought that stuffing something into the broken window would help keep mosquitoes out; but instead, it kept bats that had made the old house their home from flying out of the house – resulting in them having to loop back around over the heads of your grandmaa and grandpaa. Your grandmaa and grandpaa – during the 19 years that they were missionaries with South America Mission, experienced a lot of memorable experiences that they will never forget.
David may have had trouble sleeping at times. Psalm 4 is a psalm song prayer that David scribed asking God for His help. What led David to write this psalm song prayer seems to have been some kind of distress or calamity that created a very real concern in David. David begs God to answer him. David pleads with God for relief from his anguish. David implores God to show him mercy. David condemns the actions of his fellow compatriots – who were God’s specially chosen guys and gals, for their shameful lifestyles that has them looking inward to their individual abilities for achieving self-satisfaction and looking outward to false gods in pursuit of an elusive hope. David knew that all answers come from God. This psalm song prayer that David scribed to be sung in the temple that was located in the city of Jerusalem implies a wish that everyone knew what he knew. David’s ultimate resignation is found in verse 8, “I will lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone, O LORD, make me dwell in safety.” Would you be able to sleep in peace on a floating air mattress, with bugs crawling in your bed and/or with bats flying over your head?
Psalm 4 (820)