GET SOME "UGLY SLEEP!"

This post is inspired by Camille LeNoir. This parable that we call  "Ugly Sleep" is found only in Mark 4:26-29:

“The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how. The earth produces by itself first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. But when the grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.”
Jesus said "Go To Bed!" 

Jesus had already spoken parables of the Kingdom being like sowing a seed, but in this parable, he gives us the secret knowledge of how it works. 

We love to understand how things work so we feel like we are more in control; we love the how to messages that fill in the blanks with the knowledge we need to be happy and a bit more holy.

But in this parable Jesus explains how the Kingdom works when the seed is sown by telling us “the seed sprouts, and grows though the sower does NOT know how.” You may say that is not an explanation, but a mystery--and you’d be right!! How the Kingdom works is beyond our understanding, BUT!.... it does work! 

Can you live with that? 

(Seriously, think on that!) 

I am very cautious about anyone who is an expert about how God works. The longer I walk with Jesus the less certain I am about ALOT of things.  The more I learn about the Kingdom the less I really understand. This is ugly theology, but trust transforms it into beautiful childlike faith.

In essence, Jesus tells us that after we have done our part by sowing in faith, (bible reading that we didn't understand,  praying for family and friends to know God, charity work, other types of petitions, and the like) ALL we can do is ...... go to bed! 

GET SOME UGLY SLEEP! 

The alternative, which I used to select often, is to stay up striving, worrying, fearing, and doing some faithless praying. 

One of the best examples in my life would be Evonne's teenage years.  I sowed the seed over and over in my kids heart, by example, singing over it, praying for it, crying about it, shouting at it to grow, but rarely did I just go to bed in perfect peace knowing that in the hiddenness and silence God was powerfully at work. 

It is a battle to believe that God’s seed is more powerful than a persons rebellion.

Jesus goes on to describe the growth of the seed as producing “all by itself.” 

The word Mark uses, automato, is only found one other place: in Acts 12:10 where a huge iron gate that is locked “opens for them by itself,” so Peter is able to escape from prison. 

This word is of course where we get our word automatically. Jesus says that the seed needs no help from us, leaving us in a place of humbleness and helplessness. 

Once we have done our part, we must believe that God is faithful to do His. The miracle of resurrection is the basis of our faith for which we wait on Holy Saturday while the “seed is planted.” We will not know how, but we will know who is working. 

Is it enough for you to see no evidence, hear no noise of work going on, to stand helplessly by knowing there is nothing God needs from you, but to go to bed -in trustful peace?

The sower went about his daily life being faithful to his responsibilities, knowing that in the unseen, the underground Kingdom was at work ready to break forth at any moment. 

This hope floods the ordinary moments of life with Kingdom expectations. Free from the need to understand in order to believe and be delivered from the false responsibilities of trying to make His seed grow, we rest in Him.

In many ways going to sleep is like dying, in fact, the New Testament refers to dead believers as “sleeping.” I am not sure teaching little children the traumatic prayer “now I lay me down to sleep, and pray the Lord my soul to keep, and if I die before I wake, I pray my soul the Lord to take” is the best way to get this truth across. Jesus teaches us in this parable, that one of our greatest acts of faith is going to bed with a complete trust that while we sleep He is working, and His kingdom is advancing.

In sleep, we are completely helpless, and totally inactive depending on Him who never slumbers or sleeps. (Ps.121:4) 

The seed will sprout all by itself in the miracle of resurrection, and we will not know how it happened, but we will certainly know Who made it happen. 

Yes, God is working while we sleep, and while we live our ordinary lives, but it is usually unseen and without noise.

To be Kingdom people we must embrace our helplessness, knowing He does not need our help. We should celebrate our ignorance of how His Kingdom works, while we in faith expect the blade to sprout up. TONIGHT, why not try laying your head on the pillow in faith, and practice dying?

Get some “Ugly Sleep,” knowing God is at work.

A tall DECAF, so you can SLEEP! 

Now..... GO TO BED! 

Robbs