Which person in your family is hardest to wake in the morning? A teenaged sister or brother? Mom? Dad? The baby? You?

God blesses His creatures with sleep. He even blesses the Earth with sleep. Land rests from cultivation in winter months. In the Old Testament, God made rules that the Israelites should sometimes let land go unplanted for a whole year! After rest periods, it comes back ready to bear more fruit than before.

Sometimes we feel that we should always stay busy, busy, busy. But God reminds us: We can rest too. He’s staying up and controlling the world. You can sleep!

Even animals seem to know they can rest.

Take a cue from the world’s great sleepers:

• Koalas sleep up to 22 hours each day! Pythons snooze for 19. Owl monkeys clock 17. All these sleep more than human babies, who need about 16 hours per day.
• Many migrating birds can sleep while flying! Like dolphins and whales, half the brain stays awake to navigate.
• Even fruit flies need their zzzzzs. Scientists have found that some fruit flies sleep 10 hours per night.
• Snakes are serious sleepers in winter or after a big feast. They’ll doze for 20 hours at a time.

It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for He gives to His beloved sleep. — Psalm 127:2