as weak as a light breath which scarcely agitates the air. It shrinks from noise, and is silent amid agitation.
Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, 1491–1556
But Elijah needed something extra in order to recover from the sense of failure that had enveloped him. He felt he had not lived up to the expectations his ancestors had of him, and that he did not deserve what had happened: ‘I have been very zealous for the Lord God. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.’
God’s response was to take Elijah back to the roots of where his trust and faith began. Mount Horeb was the place where God had revealed himself to the Hebrew people and started a loving relationship with them. It was there that Elijah rediscovered the presence of God. It didn’t come in the way he expected. Nothing like it! There was a storm, but God wasn’t there. Nine hundred years later there would be a storm on Lake Galilee which Jesus calmed, and God would speak mightily through that. But not this time! There was an earthquake, but God wasn’t there. Nine hundred years later there would be an earthquake at the time of Jesus’ resurrection, and God would speak triumphantly through that. But not this time! There was fire, but God wasn’t there. Nine hundred years later the Holy Spirit would come in tongues of fire, and God would speak through that in a way which changed the world for all time. But not this time!
Instead there was a gentle whisper! That is the sort of touch of God on our lives that we might completely miss. But it is certainly true that one of the things we can do when we feel exhausted spiritually is to retrace our steps to the point where God first began to be real in our lives. Where did God first take us by surprise? During this detox it is unlikely that he will make himself known in dramatic ways. But a quiet whisper – unspectacular, ordinary – might turn out to be just what we need.
| Watch, dear Lord, with those who wake or watch or weep tonight, and give your angels charge over those who sleep. O Lord Christ, rest your weary ones. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, 354–430 |
That is the ordinary way God comes alongside us. It is not sensational, but it is genuine, and it can start a recovery in our lives. As a Christian you are not alone. A still, small voice! You are not alone, you are not alone, you are not alone!
| Detox: Look in your diary at your plans for the fortnight ahead. When will be the highly-charged days? And, within those days, which will be the most stressful hours? Reserve time after those events in which to recover, with nourishing food, rest and the kind of company you enjoy. Plan your recovery and write it in your diary now. |
Lord God, I don’t need anything dramatic; I just need something reassuring. Whisper to me that I am not alone. Amen.
Day 4 Get some sleep
If you were the president of the most powerful country in the world for 24 hours, what would you do? James Polk was President of the USA for four years and stood down from office at noon on Sunday, 4 March 1849. His successor, Zachary Taylor, was an extremely pious Christian and refused to be sworn in on a Sunday, so he did not begin his presidency until the next day. Under normal circumstances the vice-president would have held the office for the intervening period, but George Dallas had resigned the previous week. So, for one day only, the presidency was held by a man whose name has been long forgotten – the senior senator, David Rice Atchison. And why has his name not entered the history books? Because he was so exhausted from making arrangements for the inauguration that he arrived home in the early hours of the morning, went to bed, and slept through his entire day in office.
The reason I warm towards Senator Atchison is that when he talked about it afterwards he didn’t speak as if it were a wasted opportunity, but as the most sensible thing to do in the circumstances. We usually think about sleep as an absence of activity. It seems like a negative but necessary activity to recover from the positive but tiring events of the day. What would happen if, for a short while, we made sleep one of the priorities of our lives and built the rest of the day around it?
We have Jesus’ example to follow. Crowds kept him up late and woke him up early. He seems to have made a decision not to keep going until he was burnt out, but to stop whenever he knew he needed to. Mark’s Gospel tells us that at one point, after an exhausting time of teaching about the Kingdom of God, Jesus abandoned the crowd (that is the literal translation) and got in a boat ‘just as he was’. And so, either extremely exhausted or extremely confident, Jesus was able to sleep through a squall. When he was woken up by his disciples he was angry. I presume it was because they did not trust him to rescue them, but it is tempting to think that he was cross with them for rousing him from the depths of his sleep! Either way, it is interesting to see the contrast between Jesus’ reactions and those of his disciples. They saw the sea unsettled and assumed that the best response was to become as restless as nature was. But Jesus’ response was to put the storm to sleep, just as he had been. Both responses would have ended up with humans at one with nature, but Jesus’ actions lend great dignity to sleep as something God-given – a blessing of creation. Sleep isn’t laziness; it’s holiness!
| Leaving the crowd behind, [Jesus’ disciples] took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him. A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, ‘Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?’ He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, ‘Quiet! Be still!’ Then the wind died down and it was completely calm. He said to his disciples, ‘Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?’ Mark 4.36–40 |
Of course, the Bible is not so affirming about sleep that it becomes an excuse for being indolent. The Proverbs of the Old Testament warn us that idleness is a route to ruin: ‘How long will you lie there, you sluggard? When will you get up from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest – and poverty will come on you like a bandit’ (6.9–11). So how can we tell whether an extra hour or two in bed is a valuable part of a spiritual detox or just giving in to lethargy? Once again, Proverbs is helpful, because it encourages us to train ourselves to know our bodies and read the signs they give so that we can judge what they are telling us we need: ‘My son, preserve sound judgment and discernment, do not let them out of your sight; they will be life for you . . . when you lie down, you will not be afraid; when you lie down, your sleep will be sweet’ (3.21–24).
| In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat – for God grants sleep to those he loves. Psalm 127.2 |
The fact is that this generation is offered far more alternatives to going to bed than any previous one. After the sun went down for Jesus’ generation the possibilities were limited – lighting a room artificially was expensive and complicated, which thus increased the appeal of two things for which the dark is suited, one of which is sleep! However, electric light at the flick of a switch, television through the night, and an internet that (like God himself) will neither slumber nor sleep, have created endless alternatives. The result is that children at the beginning of the twenty-first century are having an average of two hours sleep per day less than their grandparents did at the same stage of their lives.
| Blessings on him who created sleep, the mantle that covers all human thoughts, the food that satisfies hunger, the drink that slakes thirst, the fire that warms cold, the cold that moderates heat, the common currency that buys all things, the balance that equalises the shepherd and the king, the simpleton and the sage. Cervantes, author of Don Quixote, 1547–1616 |
Researchers are understandably concerned about the physical and mental toll of this, and recommend that we all take the simple pleasure that sleep offers far more seriously. Their
