Daily D – Psalm 4:8
Psalm 4:8 “In peace I will lie down and sleep, for you alone, O Lord, will keep me safe.” (NLT)
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The first time I lived alone was in a ground-floor apartment on a busy parkway in a town hours removed from where I had ever lived to that point. New sounds in the night kept me a bit on edge. I didn’t rest well for a long time.
When my new bride and I moved into an apartment in the Big City, there were additional sounds along with a few threats.
I read a devotional by Chuck Swindoll during those days that helped me. He wrote about irrational fear. His words of wisdom and comfort have calmed my soul many times since then.
At the end of one of King David’s prayers, he prays these words:
In peace I will lie down and sleep,
for you alone, O Lord, will keep me safe.
The Message paraphrases these words as only Eugene Peterson could:
At day’s end I’m ready for sound sleep,
For you, God, have put my life back together.
Go back and begin at the beginning. Read this psalm beginning with the setting found before verse 1 in most modern translations. Peace and Safety are not the main themes. If David had drawn the episodes of his day one after another, carefully retracing his steps and interactions, Peace and Safety would not have been represented among the shapes and colors on the canvas.
Even so, as he lies down to sleep, he acknowledges a grander plan, a deeper reality, a more extensive work of art in which the memories of the day are contained. Those conflicts and conversations were part of a work of art of God’s own self-expression as he makes all things beautiful in his time.
Knowing this, David could confidently and quietly affirm,
“In peace I will lie down and sleep,
for you alone, O Lord, will keep me safe.”
Knowing this, I (David) confidently and quietly affirm evening by evening,
“In peace I will lie down and sleep,
for you alone, O Lord, will keep me safe.”
How do you pray at the end of your day?
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I will lie down and sleep in peace because God will keep me safe.
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Our Father, as I review my day, as I replay events and conversations, I do so in full acknowledgment that there is more going on than what I saw, what I felt, what lead measures I took, and what results were created. I rejoice that even my failures were not enough to derail your purpose for my life or for all creation. I am grateful for how my little story fits in your bigger story, your grand narrative of history ultimately pointing toward your finished product, your masterpiece of creation, redemption, and renewal. Hallelujah! Amen.
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