Sleep and Weakness

Hi everyone!

As the title indicates, today's post is about sleep and weakness.  Namely, however, my lack of sleep and newfound appreciation for weakness.  Lately I've been having problems getting to sleep, averaging about 4 to 5 hours of sleep a night. I know this is not good, but at least I know I can operate through it, giving me a taste of reality for when the school year sets in.

With my time, I have been reading a new book.  As some of you have heard Borders is going out of business, and I happened to pick up a new copy of Michael Horton's A Place for Weakness.  This book has been shocking in its presentation of who Christian is supposed to be.  Notice I said, who a Christian is supposed to be not what.  Horton argues that many people today have misunderstood Christianity as a road to health wealth and happiness.  The problem comes when these things are tossed into chaos.  It argues that the solution to this problem is not an answer of "everything will turn out okay."  But instead, he advocates for an answer of the gospel.
The gospel is such that it cannot be denied were shoved to the side.  As many popular preachers would have us believe Christianity is not about what you get in this life.  Christianity is about what life is.  Christianity does not sugarcoat life Christ himself even says there will be struggles there will be hardships and there will be times of doubt.  But our constant renewal of faith is a reminds us that he is sovereign.  Life is not an amusement park jumping on one attraction finding a thrill.  Then getting bored with that one and finding the next one.  Our lives today are so impregnated with a drug culture mentality of highs and lows that many people view Christianity as something that will give them in eternal high without the reality of the low points in a person's life.  In reality, God is so sovereign and universal that we see him not only in the high points, but especially in the low points of our life.  We see him through both the blessings and the falterings in our lives.  This universal mentality of God is a thing that I struggle with so much.  It is easy to forget who got you to the point in your life that you're currently at.  And it is all too easy to remember that God is supposed to care for you during the low points of your life.  Yet instead of shaking our fists at God, we need to remember, like Job, "if there be for him and Angel, a mediator, one of the thousand, to declare to man, what is right for him, and he is merciful to him, and says, "deliver him from going down into the pit; I have found a ransom; but his flesh become flush with youth; let him return to the days of his youthful vigor"; then man prays to God, and he accepts him; he sees his face with a shout of joy, and he restores to man his righteousness.  He sings before men and says: "I Sinned and perverted what was right, and it was not repaid to me.  He has regained my soul from going down into the pit, and my life shall look upon the light.""  (Job 33:23 -- 28)
we must every day look with the confidence that Job has in chapter 19, where he exclaims, "oh that my words were written!  Oh there were inscribed in the book!  Oh that with an iron pan in the lead they were engraved in the rock forever! For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth.  And after my skin has been us destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another.  My heart feints with in me!  If you say, 'How will we pursue him!' and, 'The root of the matter is found in him,' be afraid of the sword, for wrath brings the punishment of the sword, that you may know there is a judgment." 
Amen.  Soli Deo Gloria