Keys for Peaceful Sleep
Treasures
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My Saviour, hear my prayer
Before I go to rest;
It is Your little child
Who comes now to be blest.
Forgive me all my sin,
And let me sleep this night
In safety and in peace
Until the morning light.
—Book of Praise for Children, 1875
When we lie down to sleep at night, we can take the time to thank Jesus for His love and grace, and commit our sleep and safekeeping through the night to Him. The Bible says that God will keep in perfect peace all who trust in Him, whose thoughts are fixed on Him (Isaiah 26:3). It’s conducive to a peaceful night’s sleep to get our minds off our worries and problems and to fix our thoughts on Jesus, and to pray or read or recite a short prayer or comforting thoughts from His Word.
There are beautiful verses in the Bible about sleep that we can memorize and recite, such as “I will lie down and sleep in peace, for You alone, Lord, make me dwell in safety” (Psalm 4:8). “When you lie down, you will not be afraid; when you lie down, your sleep will be sweet” (Proverbs 3:24).
As we go to sleep, it can also be a good time to “commune with our own heart upon our bed and be still” (Psalm 4:4), to take stock of things and to reflect on the day’s events and accomplishments, as well as what we could have done better and what we learned. We can think about whether it was a day committed to walking in God’s ways and living according to His Word. What have I done with my life this day? Did I do my best to live it for Jesus and others?
When we struggle with sleeplessness, these verses from the Psalms give us a picture of how we can fight our midnight battle: “I rise before dawn and cry for help; I hope in your words. My eyes are awake before the watches of the night, that I may meditate on your promise” (Psalm 119:147–148).
The Lord watches over His children every moment of every day; He never sleeps. The Bible says that “He who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord watches over you” (Psalm 121:4–5). We also read in the Psalms that “the angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him, and delivers them” (Psalm 34:7). What a comforting thought!
Now I lay me down to sleep;
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
His Love to guard me through the night,
And wake me in the morning’s light.
—Grace Bridges, 1932
Prayer for our dreams
On several occasions in the Bible, God communicated to people in their dreams. Some of them were prophetic (such as the dreams in Daniel), and some expressed specific instructions from God. For example, Joseph was prevented from divorcing Mary by an angel sent to him by God in a dream to confirm that this pregnancy was from God and that she would give birth to Jesus (Matthew 1:20–21). After Jesus was born, God gave Joseph two more dreams, first to warn him to flee with his family to Egypt from Herod (Matthew 2:13), and then to tell him Herod was dead and that it was safe to return home (Matthew 2:19–20).
At times God spoke through a dream to warn a person (Genesis 20:3) or to give encouragement, such as Jacob’s dream of a ladder reaching to heaven, where God promised to bless him and his children (Genesis 28:12–15). The Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream in the night and granted him wisdom and knowledge as he had requested (1 Kings 3:5–15). At other times, dreams were prophetic and symbolic, such as Joseph’s dream of his brothers bowing down to him as sheaves of grain (Genesis 37:6–7).
Of course, most of our dreams are not prophetic, nor do they contain specific instructions from God, and at times our dreams can be troubling or unsettling. There may be different reasons why we sometimes have bad dreams. It could be something we were worrying about when we went to sleep, and we subconsciously carried that train of thought with us. Although the Bible records cases where dreams were a warning from the Lord about something that was going to happen, warning dreams from the Lord usually have something good and meaningful in them.
As Christians, we can commit our sleep to the Lord and pray and ask the Lord to grant us a good night’s sleep and peaceful dreams. As His child, He has promised to keep you and protect you, even in your sleep. His presence surrounds you and He “commands His angels concerning you, to guard you in all your ways” (Psalm 91:11). So “you do not need to fear terrors of the night,” including bad dreams or nightmares (Psalm 91:5).
Those times in the night when we can’t sleep or are awakened by a bad dream can be a good time to pray and commit all our cares, burdens, worries, and concerns to the Lord. King David said, “I lie awake thinking of you, meditating on you through the night” (Psalm 63:6). The night is so quiet and still that it can be a good time to commune with God during the night when sleep eludes us. “I will praise the Lord, who counsels me; even at night my heart instructs me” (Psalm 16:7).
It can be difficult to hear His “still, small voice” in the daytime with all the noise, the other voices, and the concerns of this life that compete for our attention (1 Kings 19:11–12). But the quiet of the night can be conducive to deep communion with the Lord. In the Bible, we read that Jesus often arose “very early in the morning while it was still dark” to pray (Mark 1:35), and at times He also “spent the night praying to God” (Luke 6:12). David in the Psalms also often spoke of communing with God in the night seasons (Psalm 77:6).
God works through every circumstance in our lives for His good purposes, even our sleeplessness (Romans 8:28). He can use the times when we struggle to sleep to draw us close to Him, as we take time to commune with Him, acknowledge Him in all our ways, and draw near to Him. No matter what circumstances we face, we can trust that God is with us always, and He will keep us in the night seasons.
Savior, grant me rest and peace,
Let my troubled dreamings cease;
With the chiming midnight bell
Teach my heart that “all is well.”
I would trust my all to Thee,
All my cares and sorrows flee;
Till the breaking light shall tell—
Night is past and “all is well.”
— Lucinda M. Beal Bateman, 1886
May God bless you and grant you good sleep and sweet dreams!
From an article in Treasures, published by the Family International in 1987. Adapted and republished January 2025. Read by Reuben Ruchevsky.
