{"id":1455,"date":"2012-01-11T17:57:40","date_gmt":"2012-01-11T17:57:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christcommunitychurch.com\/blog\/?p=1455"},"modified":"2012-01-11T17:57:40","modified_gmt":"2012-01-11T17:57:40","slug":"sleep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/christcommunitychurch.com\/blog\/2012\/01\/11\/sleep\/","title":{"rendered":"Sleep"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>One of our global gospel partners wrote this week.\u00a0 In the midst of a wonderful report on how God is active in his life and ministry, our friend asked for prayer for better sleep.\u00a0 I&#8217;m sending him this old prayer and thought others might benefit from it as well.<\/p>\n<p><em>Blessed Creator,<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Thou has promised thy beloved sleep;<\/em><br \/>\n<em>Give me <\/em><br \/>\n<em>restoring rest needful for tomorrow\u2019s toil.<\/em><br \/>\n<em>If dreams be mine,<\/em><br \/>\n<em>let them <\/em><br \/>\n<em>not be tinged with evil.<\/em><br \/>\n<em>Let thy Spirit make my time of repose<\/em><br \/>\n<em>a blessed <\/em><br \/>\n<em>temple of his holy presence.<\/em><br \/>\n<em>May my frequent lying down make me familiar with <\/em><br \/>\n<em>death,<\/em><br \/>\n<em>the bed I approach remind my of the grave,<\/em><br \/>\n<em>the eyes I now close <\/em><br \/>\n<em>picture to me their final closing.<\/em><br \/>\n<em>Keep me always ready, waiting for <\/em><br \/>\n<em>admittance<\/em><br \/>\n<em>to thy presence.<\/em><br \/>\n<em>Weaken my attachment to earthly <\/em><br \/>\n<em>things.<\/em><br \/>\n<em>May I hold life loosely in my hand,<\/em><br \/>\n<em>knowing that I receive it on condition of its surrender.<\/em><br \/>\n<em>As pain and suffering betoken transitory <\/em><br \/>\n<em>health,<\/em><br \/>\n<em>may I not shrink from a death that introduces me<\/em><br \/>\n<em>to the freshness <\/em><br \/>\n<em>of eternal youth.<\/em><br \/>\n<em>I retire this night in full assurance of one <\/em><br \/>\n<em>day<\/em><br \/>\n<em>awakening with thee.<\/em><br \/>\n<em>All glory for this blessed hope,<\/em><br \/>\n<em>for the <\/em><br \/>\n<em>gospel of grace,<\/em><br \/>\n<em>for thine unspeakable gift of Jesus,<\/em><br \/>\n<em>for the fellowship <\/em><br \/>\n<em>of the Trinity.<\/em><br \/>\n<em>Withhold not thy mercies in the night season;<\/em><br \/>\n<em>thy hand <\/em><br \/>\n<em>never wearies,<\/em><br \/>\n<em>thy power needs no repose,<\/em><br \/>\n<em>thine eye never <\/em><br \/>\n<em>sleeps.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Help me when I helpless lie,<\/em><br \/>\n<em>when my conscience accuses me of <\/em><br \/>\n<em>sin,<\/em><br \/>\n<em>when my mind is harassed by foreboding thoughts,<\/em><br \/>\n<em>when my eyes are <\/em><br \/>\n<em>held awake by personal anxieties.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Show thyself to me as the God of all <\/em><br \/>\n<em>grace, love and power;<\/em><br \/>\n<em>thou hast a balm for every wound,<\/em><br \/>\n<em>a solace for all <\/em><br \/>\n<em>anguish,<\/em><br \/>\n<em>a remedy for every pain,<\/em><br \/>\n<em>a peace for all disquietude.<\/em><br \/>\n<em>Permit <\/em><br \/>\n<em>me to commit myself to thee<\/em><br \/>\n<em>awake or sleep.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Amen.<\/em><\/p>\n<div id=\"wp_fb_like_button\" style=\"margin:5px 0;float:none;height:100px;\"><script src=\"http:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/all.js#xfbml=1\"><\/script><fb:like href=\"http:\/\/christcommunitychurch.com\/blog\/2012\/01\/11\/sleep\/\" send=\"true\" layout=\"standard\" width=\"25\" show_faces=\"true\" font=\"arial\" action=\"recommend\" colorscheme=\"light\"><\/fb:like><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of our global gospel partners wrote this week.\u00a0 In the midst of a wonderful report on how God is active in his life and ministry, our friend asked for prayer for better sleep.\u00a0 I&#8217;m sending him this old prayer and thought others might benefit from it as well.<\/p>\n<p>Blessed Creator,<\/p>\n<p>Thou has promised thy [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-from-the-pastor"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s1FrAa-sleep","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/christcommunitychurch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/christcommunitychurch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/christcommunitychurch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/christcommunitychurch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/christcommunitychurch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1455"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/christcommunitychurch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1455\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1457,"href":"http:\/\/christcommunitychurch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1455\/revisions\/1457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/christcommunitychurch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/christcommunitychurch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/christcommunitychurch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}