Why Did God Make Us Sleep? A Theology of Rest with Brett McCracken

Yeah, the feeling I got was, as I was reading your book is, wait a minute, I thought sleep was kind of this necessity, kind of this evil physical necessity so that I can grind it out the next day.

You know, just I need this for repair.

Yes.

But your book really, it shows the beauty of sleep and the creator made the sleep and kind of you asked this question, why sleep? Yeah.

Like, why? Why did God make this? He could have made us so we didn't need to sleep.

So people need to get the book to get this full answer.

But give us that high overview.

Why do you think in your researching and writing this, why sleep?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that's the central question that drives my exploration of this topic is that, that why, and it's a question that has perplexed scientists actually, as there's still kind of not really a consensus on what the central purpose of sleep is.

Um, There's a lot of benefits, but there's also a lot of disadvantages, especially if you think about animals and how vulnerable they are to predators when they sleep.

So why is it that humans and all known species of animals have to do this thing? Why do we sleep? I think some of the answers that I kind of came to in researching and writing this book is...

I think God likes to create things that communicate truths about him and his character.

Of course, the Bible tells us that God does this.

Like Psalm 19, the heavens declare the glory of God.

The sky above proclaims his handiwork.

Romans 1 talks about how even pagans, you know, have no excuse to kind of know some things about God just by looking at What he made and the design of his world.

So I think God is an intentional designer and there's things he makes things in such a way that if you look closely and ponder them, you can kind of get to know a little bit about who God is.

It's called general revelation in the Christian tradition.

Special revelation, of course, scripture.

It's the most important self revelation.

of God, but general revelation is the idea that in what he made, the tangible stuff of this planet, this universe, including sleep, has something to say to us.

Some of the things that I think sleep says to us about who God is, is he's a God of grace.

Sleep is a gracious gift.

Yeah, the feeling I got was, as I was reading your book is, wait a minute, I thought sleep was kind of this necessity, kind of this evil physical necessity so that I can grind it out the next day.

You know, just I need this for repair.

Yes.

But your book really, it shows the beauty of sleep and the creator made the sleep and kind of you asked this question, why sleep? Yeah.

Like, why? Why did God make this? He could have made us so we didn't need to sleep.

So people need to get the book to get this full answer.

But give us that high overview.

Why do you think in your researching and writing this, why sleep?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that's the central question that drives my exploration of this topic is that, that why, and it's a question that has perplexed scientists actually, as there's still kind of not really a consensus on what the central purpose of sleep is.

Um, There's a lot of benefits, but there's also a lot of disadvantages, especially if you think about animals and how vulnerable they are to predators when they sleep.

So why is it that humans and all known species of animals have to do this thing? Why do we sleep? I think some of the answers that I kind of came to in researching and writing this book is...

I think God likes to create things that communicate truths about him and his character.

Of course, the Bible tells us that God does this.

Like Psalm 19, the heavens declare the glory of God.

The sky above proclaims his handiwork.

Romans 1 talks about how even pagans, you know, have no excuse to kind of know some things about God just by looking at What he made and the design of his world.

So I think God is an intentional designer and there's things he makes things in such a way that if you look closely and ponder them, you can kind of get to know a little bit about who God is.

It's called general revelation in the Christian tradition.

Special revelation, of course, scripture.

It's the most important self revelation.

of God, but general revelation is the idea that in what he made, the tangible stuff of this planet, this universe, including sleep, has something to say to us.

Some of the things that I think sleep says to us about who God is, is he's a God of grace.

Sleep is a gracious gift.