I couldn’t sleep the other night. So I turned on the living room television, but found mostly infomercials. Some guy with a mullet and a bow tie hoped to sell me, “The Answer.”
“Yes! For just two easy payments of $39.95, you can possess the greatest wealth building secrets of all time–conveniently printed on three laminated cards.”
The huckster claimed he carried these cards in his back pocket at all times; they allowed him to make thousands of dollars while he slept.
“Your pajamas have pockets? There’s not an app for that?”
There’s nothing like talking back to a TV at 2 a.m.😉
After about 30 minutes, I returned to dreamland. But something from that silly infomercial stuck in my head: the idea of making money in your sleep. There’s a passage in the Bible about God working while we sleep, I thought. Sure enough, I found it over breakfast.
It is vain for you to rise up early, to retire late, to eat the bread of painful labors; for He gives to His beloved even in his sleep.
Psalm 127:2 (NIV)
What strikes me about this verse is the fact that God GIVES. One of the cross references is Isaiah 55:1–where the Lord invites everyone to “Come to the waters and drink at NO COST.”
Inspired, I dug deeper into the Bible to find more things that God gives us. Here’s a sampling:
- God gives us songs in the night (Job 35:10).
- He gives food to every creature (Psalm 136:25).
- The Lord gives wisdom, knowledge and happiness to those who please Him. (Ecc. 6:22).
- God gives strength to the weary (Isaiah 42.29).
- Jesus gives us peace that’s not like the world’s (John 14:27).
- He gives us life and breath and everything else (Acts 17:25).
Of course, all these things aren’t REALLY without cost; they are free to us because Christ already paid for them. That could be a discussion in itself.
In the meantime, isn’t it wonderful that God freely offers His best to us?
You don’t need the “answer” to anything if you know the God of everything!
