Sleep

Sleep is the one drug I take regularly. I have never used illegal drugs or even alcohol. I very rarely take any medication and even generally avoid caffeine. However, I take sleep often. It is the easiest and cheapest drug available. It is highly addictive and it is also to hard come clean. As tasty as soda can be and as decent smelling as coffee is, there is no drug more attractive than sleep. It is alluring, all the while being wholesome and clean. No dead brain cells, malfunction of the nervous system, splitting head ache, delusion, or vomiting accompany sleep. Actually, one may feel wonderfully refreshed, renewed, and clear-headed after sleeping. Sleep is one of the natural wonders for the body. While most drugs just hide pain for a while, sleep may restore the body to endure more pain.

Not only does it work on the physical body, but it also works on the mind and soul. A thousand worries and cares sleep casts aside. There are few trails or travails too great for sleep to calm. Hard work and difficult things are easily cast aside by sleep.

Of course, God gave much of the healing power of sleep to man as a gift. A gift man can desire all too much. For like many good things, too much of it turns bad. Sleep is a curious poison. Most drugs harm one’s health and eventually may lead to or quicken death. Sleep is death itself: the foreshadowing and anticipation of death. One may never buy back the hours lost to sleep. If one uses sleep to escapes his obligations, this is merely the anticipation of the day when one can meet none of his obligations. If one uses it to avoid thinking, this merely foretells the day when all thinking will be useless. When one appropriates sleep to hide from work, this is only the shadow of the day when the body becomes uselessness and dust.

So what do I propose? I want to be intentional about sleep. I want to discern when I am just using sleep to escape from the duties of life, and I want to kill that. I also want to value my time more highly, and not waste my life. This means knowing both when sleep is good, and when it becomes bad.