Rest

In his book "The Good And Beautiful God," James Bryan Smith uses an excerpt from Dr. Siang-Yang Tan's book, "Rest," where he quotes Arch Hart. (How is that for a source trail.:)) I'm too lazy to write out the quote but the key stats where that in 1850 the average American averaged 9.5 hours a sleep/night. By 1950 it was 8 hours of sleep/night. And today it is less than 7 hours of sleep. Smith also states that researchers say we need an average of 8 hours of sleep to maintain health.

The 8 hours of sleep is an average so that means that some people can get by with less but some people NEED more than 8 hours. I suppose this means that most people feel they are part of the average that needs less than 8 hours and apparently all those who sleep longer didn't wake up in time for the survey.

The real problem with sleep is the public opinion of it. If I see someone who is disciplined enough to eat a healthy diet I admire that person. The guy who can turn down a huge bowl of ice cream, or at least severely restrict the serving size, is to be commended. I am amazed when I see a guy with a whopping large salad, a hefty helping of green beans, just the "deck of playing cards" sized steak, and a miniscule helping of cheesy potatoes.

Of course we may hold in our enthusiasm when it comes to pasty pale vegan extremists, but for the most part we applaud those who eat their fruit and vegetables and show restraint with the breads. Eating healthy, if you can manage it, is a great way to win the admiration of those around you.

Not so with a healthy amount of sleep. It starts out with teenagers who we rant and rave about when they don't get up before noon. We make sure they know they are worthless slugs for being so slothful. By the time a person is an adult anything more than 7 hours of sleep is thought to be lazy.

I spent a lot of years in a developing country, living in a town that didn't have electricity. It was close to the equator so the length of the days only varied by about 45 minutes throughout the year. Every day, sometime around 7 AM, it would get light, and sometime around 7 PM, it would get dark. Not having electricity really puts a damper on a lot of things that keep us up at night. Locals would stay up talking around a fire or visit by candles or oil lamp. But everyone was very aware that night had arrived and by 10 PM everything was pretty much shut down until 7 AM when it would get light again.

We had solar panels which gave us a little more light but with no TV we were stuck with visiting or reading books. I like to read but after 3 hours of reading I was about ready for bed at 10 PM too. All this to say that this probably represents a cycle that is much closer to what we were created for if we are going to be healthy.

I could go on and talk about all the different reasons why we stay up late and get up early or are labeled as lazy. But my conclusion is that I am going to start celebrating sleep. I won't lecture my kids about sleeping too much. I'll congratulate anyone who tells me they got 10 hours of sleep last night. And I'll give a look of suspicion to anyone who tells me they only need 7 hours or less of sleep. I need to work on my suspicious look.

Understanding

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him and he will make your paths straight." Proverbs 3:5,6

That is an often quoted and well known scripture to many Christians but it occurred to me recently how difficult it is. It is of great importance when dealing with theology because I think it is easy to only believe what we can understand.

In the past decade there has been a lot discussion about theological issues like the fate of people who have never heard about Jesus, God's ability to know the future, and, most recently, is hell a real place. I'm not choosing sides for any of these in this post. I'm just saying that there has been a lot written and discussed on these issues.

What I have noticed is that in each of these issues I have heard that an alternative explanation was needed because the logical outcome of the orthodox version was incomprehensible. I understand the frustration with that and I think it is good that people discuss these issues. I think we should push hard for understanding. I just don't know when the "incomprehensible argument" became the litmus test for truth.

Didn't God yell at Job and his friends about that?

Expression

Expressing emotion or feelings, at least the very deep ones, is not easy for me at all. It creates all sorts of issues with my wife but somehow we manage. But there is a relationship I have that I feel deeply about that haunts me because of how difficult it is for me to express it. And yes, it needs expressing.

I am head-over-heels in love with Jesus. I know that is easy to say but I'm serious. It is hard for me to think of a decision I make where he isn't a factor in some way. It is what I live for. And yet I don't think very many people would guess that about me.

Now I know there is a difference in that I do believe HE knows how much I love him whereas I need to express that to my wife. But I think that in this case it is important that everyone else knows it too. But I don't think they do. I'm not even sure if my kids know it to that degree.

If you asked most people who know me, "Does Tom loves Jesus?," most would say yes. I hope. But they would say that about anybody that they know who claims to be a Christian. But somehow that doesn't capture the depth of what I feel for Jesus. It is so much more than just a statement and it bothers me, to the point that it keeps me up at night, that I don't feel I express that very well.

I know it is supposed to be irresistible, contagious even, they say. But is that really true for all people? Or is personality type just an excuse? Am I failing to truly make my love for Jesus inherent in everything I do? All I know is I'm tired.

Change

This is something that has been around forever but for some odd reason I have bumped up against it a lot recently. It has to do with changing or, rather, not changing. It seems like I've suddenly run into several impassioned pleas to, "Don't change who you are," or, the defiant, "Don't try to change me. This is just who I am."

Well, yes and no. Every time these statements are made they must be taken in context. Some people shouldn't change some of the things about them because they are pretty wonderful. And some people need to resist the efforts of others to change them into someone they shouldn't become. The problem is that pretty soon the "don't change" mantra gets set in stone and people end up against change.

Well, the fact is most of us should change, or at least change parts of who we are. I've have personally been working on a lot of things about me that I would like to change and I'm sure I'll discover even more things to change in the future. And that list includes some things that you could say I was born with. I was born with a pointy head too but I sure didn't want to keep it.

Pregnant Aliens

So I just got my electronic version of the new NIV Bible. Now I can start confusing everyone in my church when I read scripture and it doesn't follow along with what they are reading. Oh well, they'll get used to it.

I kind of liked the TNIV and I use it quite a bit. But I do agree that it crosses the line in a few places with the gender issues. On the other hand, I do like "foreigner" for "alien" because it seems to make the point more directly in the USA culture. I also like "pregnant" for the more delicate "with child" in all places except the Christmas story. But I read that out of the KJV most of the time anyway. Linus rules.

Mess

I'm working on this blog template and it is a mess. So for the few of you who drop by once a month.. sorry. I'll either get everything fixed or revert back to an old template.