“In peace, I will both lie down and sleep, for you alone, oh Lord, make me dwell in safety.”
– Psalm 4:8
Psalm 4:8 is a great verse, particularly following up on the verse we meditated on from Psalm 3:5 where David wrote, “I lay down and slept, and I woke again, for the Lord sustained me.” So he was talking about how God sustains him and waking him up in the morning. And then in chapter four, we have David talking about how when he goes to sleep, he goes to sleep in peace. Why? Because God makes him dwell in safety.
Amid the chaos and hectic schedule of every day life, we can lie down in peace knowing that we belong to God.
I want you to think about what happens when you lay down at night. You put your head on your pillow. And you think about the day, all that you did, all that you said, all that you saw. Maybe you consider the next day. There’s so many things going on in our lives that we have to think about when we lay down at night. Sometimes we just want to stop thinking about it all. Sometimes our minds are just full of all these things. Then, sometimes with stress or worry or anxiety about this or that. And in the middle of it all, Psalm 4:8 says, “You can lie down and sleep in peace.” Why? Because you know that the Lord causes you to dwell in safety.
Psalm 4:8 Reminds Us The Lord Has Our Life In His Hands
In other words, the Lord has your life in his hands. And this is peace giving. You think about it, sleep is a pretty humbling thing. One of my favorite quotes on sleep is from John Piper. He once said, “Sleep is a daily reminder from God that we are not God. Once a day, God sends us to bed like patients with a sickness. The sickness is a chronic tendency to think we are in control, and that our work is indispensable. To cure us of this disease, God turns us into helpless sacks of sand once a day. How humiliating to the self-made man or woman that he or she has to give up all control and become as limp as a suckling infant every day?”
When We Sleep He Gives Us Peace
Oh, what a great reminder. When we lie down to go to sleep, we realize we’re not ultimately in control. God ultimately is in control, and this is the key to sleeping in peace, to resting at night, amidst everything going on in our lives.
I don’t obviously know everything that’s going on in your life right now, and I imagine there’s a lot of things when you lay down at night that you could be worried about, thinking about, anxious about. I just want to encourage you with Psalm 4:8. In peace you can both lie down and sleep, because the God of the universe holds your life in his hands. He alone can make you dwell in safety.
Psalm 4:8 Praises God For The Peace We Find In Him
So God we praise you from the pure rest that is found in you, the total rest that is found in you. We praise you, oh God, amidst all the circumstances in our lives, all the challenges that we are facing in our lives, that you are ultimately in control, that we’re reminded every night when we go to bed that we are not indispensable, that we’re not in control, that you alone are ultimately in control. And we are so glad you are. You are a good, gracious, powerful, loving god. And we have peace in who you are and in your sovereign control over all things. So God, I pray for men and women who are listening to this right now, kids who are listening to this right now, God I pray that as they go to bed at night, that they would lie down and sleep in peace, knowing that you alone, oh Lord, make them dwell in safety. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
