My daughter fell asleep in class once. It was story time during kindergarten. All the kids would lay down on the rug after lunch and the teacher would read a story. My daughter got in trouble because she fell asleep and didn’t wake up and the class went on and the teacher didn’t realize she was still sleeping on the rug. And when the teacher discovered her she got into trouble. She was very upset about this because she never got into trouble.
She was afraid to tell me but I could tell something was wrong the moment she came out of school. She kept it together when I asked her what was wrong and she just marched past me to the van. When she climbed in she lost it and told me tearfully what happened.
I told her shew as fine. She wasn’t in trouble. I suggested we give her a thermos of coffee to take to kindergarten every day and that was a silly enough suggestion that made her smile.
That day she asked me why people have to sleep. I had no answer but today, all these years later I think I have some thoughts. Not an answer per se but some thoughts.
I suppose God thought sleep would be a good way of preventing us from getting into too much trouble. If we were drinking too much, we’d eventually have to go to sleep. If we were angry, we’d grow tired. If we were passionately chasing some goal without thought of consequences, maybe sleep would offer some perspective.
I think the angels asked God how often He wanted us to sleep to keep us out of trouble. Once per year? Once a month? But knowing us God said that we should go to sleep once a day.
And that tells you all you need to know about how well God understands Man.
