Ever needed God's answer for something in your life and become frustrated when you didn't sense His direction? We can find ourselves pressing in so hard to know God's will that we cannot get quiet long enough to hear even if He did speak to our heart.
What do we do?
We can press in so urgently seeking to know God's will that sometimes in jest, it's as though we say, "Lord, I need to know your will. You wrote on the wall for Belshazzar. Could you just write it down for me tonight while I sleep? I won't peek. I don't want to miss your will." Haven't you felt that way sometimes? But God has a better way for us to know His will.
Our spirit does not sleep when our body does! We are a 3-part being: spirit, body and soul (which is our mind, our emotions, and our will). Our body lies down to sleep but our spirit does not sleep. God is spirit and He does not sleep! Neither does our spirit sleep!
God wants us to worship Him in spirit. He also wants to speak to us, Spirit to spirit. Psalm 16, verse 7 tells us, "I will praise the Lord, Who counsels me; even at night my heart instructs me." In preparation before we go to sleep, we need to quiet our mind, instruct our spirit to quietly worship and praise the Savior, and commit any need to the Lord, asking Him to speak to our heart about the matter.
Have you ever awakened in the morning with an answer on your mind and you've said, "Why didn't I think of that earlier?" In reality, our mind usually hasn't kicked in. It is our mind receiving from our spirit "a word from the Lord."
Isaiah 50, verse 4 states, "He wakens me morning by morning, wakens my ear to listen like one being taught." It's exciting to know that the Lord will speak to our spirit as we sleep and we can waken with His voice speaking to us or just simply knowing the answer deep within. In John 10:4, Jesus tells us that His sheep follow Him because they know and recognize His voice. It goes on to say in verse 5 that His sheep will run away from a stranger because they do not recognize a stranger's voice. We will learn to recognize when our spirit has received from the Holy Spirit. It comes from deep within, not usually from an exterior source.
We must walk quietly and thankfully with our Lord in obedience so that we will be able to know His will because we have His written Word and His voice that teaches us in the night. What a comfort to know that He not only has His angels guard us while we sleep, but we can also hear His voice deep within our spirit!