Joseph Prince - What To Do When You Can't Sleep
This is an excerpt from: Answers For Dark Nights And Difficult Seasons
What are you doing when you can't sleep? Meditate. If the devil wants to keep you awake, let him pay. That's why it says, "You shall meditate on my Word day"... "His delight is in the law of the Lord and in his law doth he meditate, and he shall be". I will say the next day, "He shall be like a tree planted". I don't know how many times I've meditated, and then I fall asleep into a deep sleep. I'm telling God as my witness, there are times I cannot sleep, I'll just meditate. Can't sleep, meditate. Take advantage of that moment to meditate on things I've been wanting to meditate. It's time to chew the cud like the sheep, you know, like the cow. After they are well fed, they sit down there, they chew.
Whatever I learned, this verse has spoke to me just now, it's nice time for me to masticate it, meditate on it, chew it. It becomes milk, it becomes bones and becomes meat and flesh, strength and health, amen. Meditate on it. How many times I've done that, fall asleep. Next thing you know, it's morning, amen? Now, don't get up listen to rock music, or rap, or watch TV. Meditate. So, God gave Solomon a dream. In fact, God asked him when? In a dream. The Bible says he was in Gibeon when he offered 1,000 burnt offerings. That was the place where the the bronze altar was, the lever was there, the menorah was there, the altar of incense was there. All the outward furniture of the tabernacle of Moses was there, except for the Ark of the Covenant. His father, David, brought it to Zion, Jerusalem.
So, this is a picture of a man when he didn't know any better, his heart was sincere. He was worshiping like religiously in a place where he thought God was. He offered 1,000 burnt offerings and that night, God appeared to him in a dream, that night. And God says, "Ask what I shall give you". If the Lord appears right now and says, "Ask what I shall give you in your night season". You hear God say, "Ask", blank check, "what I shall give you". What would you say? "Four numbers, Lord, just for numbers, that's all". In Singapore four numbers is like Lottery. You know, you get it all right, you become rich overnight. "Just four, Lord, no more". But why do you want the four numbers? "I want to win the Lottery". Why do you want to win the Lottery? "I want to get the money". Why do you want to get the money? "It'll give me a good life".
Listen, God will bypass all that and give you the good life anyway. How about that? Straight, don't have to collect 200, don't have to bypass anything. Go straight. That's what wisdom will give you. So, Solomon, above everything else, he asked God for wisdom. "Give me a hearing heart". He asked God for wisdom. And God, you know, God loves it. One prayer that my son has learned to ask God for is wisdom. All right, the other day. Now, they have been having a series in the Sunday school where they're teaching them about prayer. So, I was told by the teacher, "What's his prayer request"? He said, "Number one, to win the rare Pokemon". By the way, a disclaimer, when he plays Pokemon, he's not allowed and he knows he doesn't want to play with those with psychic powers, amen. Just the other simple powers. He want the rare Pokemon. But then, he say, "But I also asked God for wisdom. I also asked God for wisdom". And that's something that is ingrained in him, amen.
Solomon asked God for wisdom in a dream, and he received in a dream. I said, he received in a dream, and it was Solomon who wrote Psalms 127. Most of the Psalms are written by David, but this one was written by Solomon. And Solomon says, "It's vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows". Now, it's okay to rise up early, nothing wrong with that, per se. Nothing wrong with sitting up late. But if you are rising up early because you are worrying, you're eating the bread of sorrows. During the night, you're eating the bread of sorrows so you wake up early. Or you are sitting up late because you're worried.
Bread of sorrows is a picture worry. It's a Hebrewism for worry and anxiety, eating worry, eating anxiety, that's your bread for the night. The Bible say it's vain, it's empty. You won't accomplish anything. Your problem will remain the same. In fact, you'll become worse, right? Your spirit, your attitude is now depressed in a way that, you know, you had the right perspective. Your problem might still be there, but your spirit is, it's changed. Many a times, God change you as a spirit before he change your outside. That's why you prosper and be in health, even as your soul prospers. So, as the soul prospers, he prospers your soul first, and then your outside will follow, your health will follow, amen? But it's vain to sit up late, worrying, rise up early because you're worried, to eat the bread of sorrows, why? "For so God gives His beloved", and this word here is Yedidyah.
All right, you put a name Yah, Yedidyah, Yedidyah is beloved and he's putting his name here. Do you know another name of Solomon is actually Jedidiah. Jedidiah is Yedidyah, Yedidyah, God's beloved, Yahweh's beloved. What a beautiful expression, isn't it? His father is David, from the same expression, same etymology, David is beloved. It takes a David to knock down a Goliath. It takes someone who knows he's beloved to knock down the enemy, amen, to win in the fight of war, amen? Having a different spirit from all Israel, they were intimidated. It takes someone who knows he's beloved. Now, his son, his other name is Jedidiah, amen. In fact, the Lord called him Jedidiah, which means beloved of the Lord.