Sleep is so strange. Why is it that we need to be unconscious every day in order to function when we are conscious?
Being awake is inherently stressful. Our daily activities demand resources from our bodies that we can’t pay continuously.
There is so much variety in God’s creatures; birds that fly, horses that gallop and run, giant elephants and swimming fish. Among humans there is staggering variety in culture, language, and appearance.
But we all need sleep. We cannot continue living the stressful, wonderful life we have without paying the price of sleep. It is a universal activity among living creatures.
The Bible talks about sleep as God’s gift in Psalm 127:2: It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep.
It is vain because the work we do while on a sleep deficit is low quality. Sleep actually makes our work more productive and better. God gives it to us to help us, not hinder us.
Why didn’t God just make us to not need sleep?
I have heard people ask this. But the question is a little strange when you think about it. Why did God make day, a time to work and see what we do and be productive, and night, a time to sleep? Why did God make food to replenish our bodies and give us energy? Why did he make beautiful sunsets and trees and the sky?
All of these things fit together and are connected as part of God’s creation. God could have made us sleepless, but then he wouldn’t have made us. He would have made something completely different. But God made this world not a different one (that we know of). And this world is a sleeping world, at least half of the time. And it is good.
And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. Genesis 1:31