Is sleep a spiritual discipline? A biblical case for rest

Mark Turman: [00:00:02] This is Faith and Clarity, and I'm Mark Turman, your host for today's conversation. We want to help you as always to find God's clarity, his compassion, and also his confidence, uh, in a world that's often confused and sometimes even just downright chaotic. Today we're talking about something that probably, I'm guessing, is high on your need list, which is for more additional sleep and rest. Uh, you know that the, the world often tells us that resting is a sign of weakness or laziness. Well, we're going to challenge that proposition today with my conversation partner, Brett McCracken. He is a senior editor for the Gospel Coalition and is a leading voice in the intersection of faith, culture, and a digital age that can really be exhausting at times. For more than 20 years, Brett has helped Christians to navigate our modern culture, giving it biblical discernment, thoughtful engagement, and deep love for the church as well as for the Lord. He's written a number of books, and today we're going to talk about, uh, his most recent work, The Wisdom of Sleep, uh, how we need to engage and what the Bible says about rest and sleep and how that can be not only beneficial to us, but a powerful witness to the world around us in a really noisy, often chaotic world. Uh, Brett, welcome to Faith and Clarity. We're glad to have you with us.

Brett McCracken: [00:01:25] Thank you. Thanks for having me, Mark. I'm excited to have this conversation.

Mark Turman: [00:01:30] Well, I I just feel like Brett, there has to be some kind of a significant backstory as when when I saw the work that you had done, I thought, well, I've never even thought about trying to do a sermon series in my church about sleep. Um, but your your work has become a foundation for that, hopefully in the near future. But what was it that prompted you to take up this topic?

Brett McCracken: [00:01:56] Yeah. Yeah, there's a couple things. Um, one is I've just been personally interested in it as a topic of theological kind of exploration for probably like a decade or more. I remember listening to a John MacArthur sermon back in like 2010, I believe it was at Together for the Gospel, uh, conference, and he gave a sermon on a theology of sleep. And it just really stuck with me and, um, those ideas of looking at something that's like an everyday reality, like sleep, we do it, you know, every night, we don't really think too much about it. But God designed it and he's an intentional designer. So what are the lessons that God might have for us in this embodied rhythm that he designed? What is the wisdom of God that we can kind of glean from looking at sleep a little deeper than we normally do. So, I also just don't think a book has been written, like a a robust theology of sleep. There's a lot of books out there that are on Sabbath and rest for Christians and those are great. But I thought, why don't I try to write a book that, uh, looks at sleep specifically as like kind of a sub genre of rest that, uh, Christians should take seriously. So, I also just am a dad of four little kids, so I'm in a stage of life where sleep doesn't come as easy as it once did. And yet, when you when you struggle with sleep, you know, when you experience disrupted sleep, I think it tends to make you appreciate the gift of sleep more than ever. And that's certainly been my experience, uh, in this kind of weary, uh, weary parent stage of life that I'm in.

Mark Turman: [00:03:41] Yeah, so, uh, I noticed in your work that you kind of talk about that as a dad and I'm a grandfather of three and it seems like we're having this conversation with our daughter all the time about interrupted sleep and the need for more sleep and that type of thing. Uh, I'm just curious as a dad, uh, why do you think it is that children are just generally opposed to sleep from their earliest years?

Brett McCracken: [00:04:06] Yeah, I mean, I yeah, I don't know. I mean, it's it parents struggle with that, right? Like your your parents, your kids fight it and you have to like, it takes an hour sometimes to like get your kid from like getting your PJs to like actually falling asleep. Hopefully in my household because dad wrote a whole book about the wisdom of sleep. I'm hoping that my kids will like start to appreciate it more and not fight it. I've actually have noticed that with like my older two boys recently. They they're like, Dad, like we're going to like practice the wisdom of sleep and we're going to go to go to bed. And I'm like, yes, like that's what I hoped for. But, you know, I think we're it's probably part of our fallen nature in some way that we just instinctually push back against this built in requirement to stop and to pause and to just rest because as you know, um, a big part of our sinful nature is pride, like an overestimation of our own importance and the importance of us being awake and doing more and experiencing more and consuming more content and whatever. And to to rest is a humbling activity. It's like a check against our pride. And I think we're we are just prone to push back against that, um, in our in our fallen nature.

Mark Turman: [00:05:31] Yeah, which, yeah, sets up really well for the next thing I wanted to talk about, which is, uh, I love how you point out in this work, uh, the tension between our achievement culture. Yeah. Um, and then what it also made me think about, uh, kind of the flip side of that, which is what I would call the aimless culture, especially sometimes being pointed out, uh, among young men. Um, they seem to be in no hurry, uh, to quote unquote, grow up. Um, but, uh, I love the way you kind of deal with this tension of the the message of the Bible when it regards rest and sleep is really very profoundly countercultural. Um, can you kind of expand on that in terms of not only is it really beneficial for us, but it's powerful in terms of its witness to the world?

Brett McCracken: [00:06:21] Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I mean, I think what you pointed out is true that there tends to be kind of extremes on the topic of rest. You either have the overworker, kind of hustle, you know, productivity is everything, maximize my time. And then you have the more like the other extreme of like maybe resting too much, a little bit lazy, a little bit averse to work. And I think both of those are an imbalance of what God designed to be a relationship of balance. Work is a good thing. We are meant to work and we're meant to work hard. And rest and sleep are are good things that God created and we are meant to do those things and to go all in when we are doing those things. So, but they are only good things if they are in relationship to each other in kind of the proper balance. And you even see that in your your everyday life. Like when I work really hard, like on the days where I just give my all in my job, I tend to sleep better at night because I'm doing what God created me to do with my waking time. And then when I go to sleep, I have a good sleep. But then my good sleep then fuels me to be a better worker, you know, so the two things feed each other and serve each other. And when they get a little bit out of whack, like if we work way too much and don't rest enough or the opposite, um, we start to kind of suffer a little bit, um, because we're not kind of in that balance. Um, but yeah, I think there's something really powerful to model when we celebrate in our own everyday life, the both both good gifts, the good gift of work and the good gift of rest.

Mark Turman: [00:08:12] Yeah, can help me frame that out a little bit more, especially from the standpoint of the culture. Um, I I recently read a quote from a really popular author in our day, uh, who said activity, uh, reduces anxiety. Uh, and I thought, well, maybe that fits with what Brett is trying to say and yet maybe it doesn't. And then I remember you make a point in your writing that our culture celebrates people who can get by with a minimum of sleep. Right. And we tend to mock or disparage even people who, you know, sleep, uh, significantly seven, eight hours. You know, I can remember back in the days of the Reagan presidency where he was criticized at times or right after his term in office because he usually took a nap. Um, and, you know, I told you before we were recorded that I live in the Dallas area. Well, uh, the previous coach of the Dallas Mavericks was asked on on occasion, what would you tell every player in the in the NBA to do to get better? And he said, take a nap every day. Yeah. Wise, wise advice. Yeah. Yeah, it just it just again, so prevalent in our culture that you're really tough if you can get by with very little sleep.

Brett McCracken: [00:09:33] Yeah, and I I do think it is changing a little bit, like because the science is so clear and the consensus is emerging that, um, for your health, like sleep is actually really critical on a whole host of levels. And so athletes, professional athletes are increasingly, uh, aware of that and outspoken as advocates for sleep. Um, I I forget who it was, maybe LeBron James or something. He recently like like talked about like sleep as like this like kind of secret sauce behind his athletic success. And so I do I do think the narrative is changing a little bit. Um, but yeah, for a long time in our culture, the mentality has been like, sleep is for wimps, you know, that's what Margaret Thatcher said back in the day. Sleep is for wimps. And, you know, Bon Jovi had that song, I'll sleep when I'm dead. So this mentality of like, yeah, like there's too much to do, there's too much work, there's too much to achieve. So why why should I sleep? Why should I prioritize sleep? Um, and that's where it becomes a a countercultural choice, um, because you can be a really ambitious person, a really productive person and also sleep well and prioritize sleep. You can do both. And like I said earlier, when you do both and you have them kind of in their proper relationship as God designed, um, both of them will actually be better. You know, you'll sleep better and you will have more productive work.

Mark Turman: [00:11:06] Yeah, absolutely. Uh, your book is really well researched. You did some deep dives into some of the research, uh, going on around sleep, rest, dreams. We'll get to dreams in a minute. Always seems to perk people's attention when you talk about dreams. Um, but let me kind of set up this next part of the conversation. As a pastor, uh, I ran into this a couple of times with some people that were either in or related to my congregation. One really stands out, a young man that was in college, uh, and not only was he in college, but he had at least one internship and probably one job. And, uh, we got a call one day, he was going to school out of state, um, that he was in the hospital. And basically the background story was is that he was walking through the middle of the town where his college was, uh, with nothing on but a pair of pants and was predicting the end of the world in a cataclysmic kind of way. Uh, people were afraid of him. The police were called and a very wise police officer didn't take him to jail, they took him to the hospital. And when his family was called and went to to take care of him, the doctors initially said that they thought that he had had a psychotic break. Um, but after about a week in the hospital with a regiment of sleep and proper nutrition, he just basically came back to himself. Uh, and I thought, that's not just a story limited to a few individual, uh, young people in college. Yeah. Uh, but give us a little bit of the sense of the research that you went swimming around in, maybe three or four of the stats that stick out to you about what kind of a crisis of of sleeplessness that our culture is experiencing.

Brett McCracken: [00:13:01] Yeah, I mean, I think, uh, that example is a vivid example of many of just all that can go wrong, uh, when you don't get proper sleep. And, you know, one thing that's on the rise in our culture is distracted or drowsy driving accidents. So it's kind of like, I think it overtook DUIs recently as like an even more common cause of traffic fatalities. People who are just too tired and they get behind the wheel and, you know, that's a way that you can both hurt yourself and sadly, you know, hurt or kill someone else because you were not a proper steward of your sleep. And there's a whole host of other ways that not getting enough sleep, uh, impairs your own health and can affect others, right? Like even as a dad, like when on days when I don't get enough sleep, I can be grumpy and irritable and I'm not loving my family like I should in those moments. So my sleep hygiene, the way that I steward my sleep affects both me and and those around me, my co-workers, I'm a better worker if I'm well rested. Um, but yeah, I mean, the the science of sleep and all of its benefits are it's really astounding. And as I did the research for this book, I read kind of a number of the most recent books on sleep and the most recent research on sleep and it's pretty mind blowing just how much of our physical health is, uh, improved with good sleep habits. And then the the opposite is also true. If you're not getting good sleep on a regular basis, there's a lot that can go wrong with all sorts of bodily systems. And I think one of the stats is seven out of 15 leading causes of death in the US are linked to poor sleep quality. So almost half of the leading causes of death are can be tied to poor sleep, um, habits. And there's there's one stat that I thought was interesting about like life expectancy is has been shown to, um, you you live on average 4.7 years longer for men, 2.4 years for women, um, by having regular good sleep quality. So literally your choice now to sleep well can extend your life. And the opposite is true. If you're if you have a short-term view of like, I need to get more done in my day and I need to work, work, work, work, work, and I'm not going to sleep. I'm I'm going to sleep when I'm dead as Bon Jovi sings. Well, you might die sooner by making that choice. So you'll sleep when you're dead, but that might come sooner for you. So all of this is backed up by research and science. Uh, and so I think as Christians, our takeaway is that we know we are called to be good stewards of the body we've been given. The body is a temple, right? We it's it's something God made and we are stewards of it. Well, part of that stewardship has to be prioritizing sleep because so much of our overall health is is tied to that.

Mark Turman: [00:16:16] Yeah. I just, yeah, I wonder if, uh, we're not far from the point where, you know, when you go for your annual physical, the doctor will be asking, okay, well, what's your blood pressure and what's your heart rate? What's your weight and what's your sleep regimen, right? For sure. For sure. You know. And I think a lot of a lot of doctors, if they discover that their patient has a sleep disorder, that's going to be like priority number one to fix that because if you can refer a patient to like a sleep doctor and get that sleep disorder figured out, that will that will have downstream effects of improving other aspects of health.

Mark Turman: [00:16:57] Yeah, and and as your work pointed out, it's almost there's almost no part of our health, both physically and mentally that's not improved when when this gets better. Were you, uh, were you surprised or affirmed when you found out that kind of the magic number is seven hours?

Brett McCracken: [00:17:15] Yeah, I mean, I I had heard over the years that that that was kind of what it was like and and it's always changing like the the specific range. I think most recently there was a study that said like somewhere between 6.4 and 7.8 is like the magic amount of of sleep. But that'll probably change, you know, in 10 years with more research. But I do think, um, it's just good affirmation that that kind of common folk wisdom that we all grow up, you know, get get your eight hours of sleep, get your seven hours of sleep. It's backed up by science because if you get too much sleep, that that the health benefits of sleep start to diminish. So too little and too much sleep can have negative effects on your health.

Mark Turman: [00:18:08] Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, really some really great insights. I was, uh, I was really kind of amazed to be honest with you, Brett, as I worked through this material, just how many different passages of scripture, uh, are included in this work. Um, did that surprise you when you were putting this together that really, uh, the whole concept of sleep and rest and even dreams are just so deeply woven into the overall story of scripture. Tell us a little bit about that.

Brett McCracken: [00:18:38] Yeah, I mean, that was really fun for me to to kind of dive into scripture and I really wanted this book to be a biblical kind of theology of sleep. Like I wanted to take the best of science and also what scripture has to say about this topic. Um, it's kind of like the book of scripture and the book of nature, the two books. Yeah. How do we understand something like sleep when we're learning from both books? And yeah, I mean, scripture has sleep all over it. There's so many famous moments in scripture where sleep is like a big part of the story, whether it's Jesus sleeping in the storm or Abraham, you know, sleeping when that covenant kind of, um, moment happens and Adam, God puts Adam to sleep so that he can form Eve out of his side. And there's countless moments of dreams and we can get into that, um, more specifically in a minute. But yeah, I mean, the Bible has a lot to say about it, which is not surprising because it's something God designed and he created this nightly, um, rhythm for a purpose and there should be kind of theological lessons we learn from it.

Mark Turman: [00:19:56] Yeah. Uh, tell us what you mean by, uh, drawing a distinction between sleep and rest. Um, how do we, how should we think more about those two things working together?

Brett McCracken: [00:20:07] Yeah, I mean, they're related, of course. I think they're both kind of, um, different expressions of the same kind of idea, which is, uh, not all of our lives are meant to be achieving and working and kind of toiling. Uh, God wants there to be moments where we have more breathing room in every sense, right? Where we can physically rest and we can mentally rest and we can enjoy the gifts, you know, the fruit of our labor, the gifts of God's world. Um, you know, when when God finishes his creation in the six days of creation and he has his own day of rest on day seven, I think part of that is him having a dedicated time to survey all that he made and enjoy it, right? Like, what's the point of work and creation and production if you don't make space to actually enjoy that. And so that's the beautiful harmony again, that's the beautiful proportional balance that God creates with these rhythms of work six days, rest one day, be awake for two-thirds of your day, sleep for a third of your day. It's all kind of an expression of how he designed us to have these rhythms of complementary balanced work, rest, waking and sleeping. Um, but yeah, I mean, rest is obviously something we do with our eyes open usually, we're more aware, um, we can consciously kind of engage with things whereas sleep is you're you're kind of out of the realm of kind of active conscious participation and it's more your body being replenished and restored and receiving, um, the gifts of rest. But, um, yeah, they're very related, I think, rest and sleep.

Mark Turman: [00:22:06] Let's talk a minute about the, uh, you come back to this idea several times in the work, which is, um, uh, well, I'll I'll put it this way. My pastor, I I remember certain things that he said in the first couple of years that I became a Christian. I came came to Christ in my late teens and just was profoundly, uh, touched, especially by the first pastor I ever had. Uh, I can remember on a Sunday morning, he was preaching to the church about taking care of themselves, not just spiritually, but physically. Uh, never have forgotten this statement. He said, you can't expect to soar with the eagles if you hoot with the owls. Um, and was his way of trying to get this point across. Uh, but you come back to this over and over again that Christians should not simply hold a utilitarian view of sleep that it's just simply kind of this necessary evil that we just have to kind of just go with. Uh, talk about how a willingness to sleep and to follow God's direction in this area is really an an, uh, a statement of the sacredness of God's plan, uh, as well as an, uh, an example really of a mature faith.

Brett McCracken: [00:23:21] Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think it's immature to look at sleep as this necessary evil kind of thing that we do begrudgingly. Um, and we get the bare minimum, right? Or I think it's also immature to to relegate sleep to just this utilitarian thing, kind of like a battery that needs to be recharged. Like in order to function in my waking life, I I have to plug myself into sleep, you know, like I plug in my phone. That's an immature kind of very thin, superficial way to look at sleep. I think as Christians, there's so much in sleep that can be, um, an act of declaring trust in a sovereign God and surrendering our control. You know, when we choose sleep, even though we have there's no end to like the to-dos on our list and there's so much, so many burdens we still carry, so many things that we we are anxious about. And we could stay up all night being anxious about that. We could stay up all night finishing our email inbox and catching up at work. But by choosing to not do that and and instead to to sleep, it's basically a declaration that God is in control. He's he is God. He's got things in his hands, right? The world is in his hands. Like the world doesn't need me to be always awake. It's enough that God is awake, right? Um, it's the wisdom of Psalm 127. Unless the Lord builds the house, he who labors labors in vain, right? Right. Don't don't eat the bread of anxious toil. Um, instead, receive the gift. Psalm Psalm 127 verse two, he gives his beloved sleep. He he wants us to receive this gift as an act of acknowledging that he's a gracious giver for one thing. Um, and we receive his gifts. We don't achieve them. We don't deserve them. We don't earn them, but we gladly receive them. And, um, when we sleep, we are declaring that we can rest easy because we trust fully that God is in control and I don't have to be in control 24/7. And that's liberating and that's a total relief. And when you truly believe that theologically, I think physically you will be able to sleep a little bit better.

Mark Turman: [00:25:54] Yeah, it just, it's just such a profound and comforting thought to realize, you know what, God was running the world a long time before I got here and can and will run it without me a long time after if that's what he chooses. And there's just such a relief in that. Um, such a profound, really great understanding. Yeah. Uh, we're going to step away for a moment, take a break, let our audience catch their breath and we'll be right back with Brett McCracken. All right, we're back talking about the wisdom of sleep. And, uh, Brett, wanted to just engage this, uh, conversation around what you point out about limits. Uh, I thought this was, um, a really insightful thing. You also, you also include a couple of quotes from another favorite author of mine, Tish Harrison Warren, um, who wrote a book of in some ways about limits when she talked about the liturgy of the ordinary. Um, she talks about in one place in that book that she sometimes finds herself being resentful that she needs to brush her teeth every day. And, um, and we are confronted in so many ways with this reality that while we are made in the image of God with amazing abilities, uh, we also have this set of built-in limits. Um, uh, we're working in our ministry right now kind of around the the idea of how God leads through our limits. Um, but sleep, uh, sometimes, as we've already talked about, feels like it's imposed upon us. Um, but talk about how God is really trying to bring us into flourishing, um, but if we resist, uh, and reject this limit of rest and sleep, it actually can cascade not only into other health problems, but it it can cascade into other twisted theology as maybe a way of saying it. Talk about that.

Brett McCracken: [00:27:59] Yeah, I think sleep is one of the greatest, greatest everyday examples of how the limits that we might perceive to be imposed upon us or kind of, um, kind of like rules, you know, like kids don't like the rules that dad puts around them and we resist that. But, um, as we know, you know, you grow up and become a parent yourself, you realize the rules that you give to your kids are because you love them, because you want them to flourish. And I think maturity in life and in faith is coming to see how limits are an act of love. Like having limits, um, put around you are for your protection and for your good. And, uh, sleep is one of those wonderful like gracious limits that God gives us. And it's a beautiful reminder that we are not God and God is God. He is awake, you know, so that we can sleep. He's got the whole world in his hands. We don't. That is a relief. That should come as a, as good news to us that we don't have to be God. Like, there's only one God and he's got things fully in control. And so I think that limit of sleep is really a grace and, um, limits are so crucial for human wisdom. And I think folly tends to come when we try to transgress our limits and we we want to like play God. Um, we see that in all sorts of ways in modern culture, whether it's like the folly of thinking that you can change your gender to be whatever you want to be. You're not satisfied with the limit of your gendered body, so you just get a surgery and take, you know, hormone blockers and you're playing God in those moments, right? Same thing with like other limits that might be placed around you in God's sovereignty. Like fertility is one of those things where people feel like if I'm not getting what I want, I'm going to like do every sort of intervention I can possibly do to like force the the outcome that I'm desiring. And I think that's, you know, foolish because if there's a limit in our life, we should pay attention to it as a as a grace from God. There's something he's teaching us. There's some wisdom he is instilling. And when we try to push against every limit and transgress transgress every limit, it tends to lead, uh, towards more grief, honestly. So, sleep is just a nightly reminder that limits are good and when you push against sleep, you're going to get burned actually. You're going to when you go against the grain of God's design, you will get splinters. But when you go with the grain of God's design, you know, it'll be a smoother path for you.

Mark Turman: [00:30:54] Yeah, it just, it just made me think of how many people who don't follow Christ kind of have a theology of my goal in life is to eliminate every limit that's holding me back. Yeah. Um, and that's kind of the message of the world is, you know, you were meant for more, more, more and it's it's all of the things and stuff around you that's holding you back. You have to figure out how to get loose from that. And it also made me made me realize that basically the story that Christianity holds is that the fall happened because Adam and Eve resisted and rejected a limit. God had a single limit that he wanted them to respect and that was the thing that became the source of their temptation and their fall, right?

Brett McCracken: [00:31:37] Yeah, that the the resistance to limits, yeah, goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden with the one limit. Like they had everything. They had this beautiful paradise and they weren't that wasn't enough. They they were not okay having one limit placed around them. And we inherit that resistance. That's a product of the fall is in our flesh, we just we bristle at the idea of limits. We see rules and limitations as obstacles to overcome, not a grace of God for our good.

Mark Turman: [00:32:11] One of the things that, uh, you point out as you talk about this is how the rhythm, daily rhythm of of sleep and waking is really a retelling of the gospel to us, uh, and an invitation, uh, to the gospel in many ways. Yeah. Talk about what you mean by that.

Brett McCracken: [00:32:31] Yeah, this was one of the like kind of, uh, just kind of wow moments for me as I was thinking about this topic and thinking about the theological, um, parallels with sleep. And I was thinking about just what sleep and waking up look like. It's kind of a what does it a picture of? And sleep is an unmistakable picture of death. Like you're lying flat, your eyes are closed, you look like a corpse, you're unconscious, you're basically paralyzed. Like it could not be more close to death than actually being dead. Like your internal organs are still functioning, but other than that, you might as well be dead. And historically, you know, in the ancient world, the Greeks, they they called sleep the brother of death. Uh, in Greek mythology, sleep and death were cousins or brothers. And in in Christianity, that that connection holds true as well. Um, even in the Bible, you see people who are dead are sometimes called asleep. Arise, oh sleeper, right? Those who have those who have fallen asleep will one day be raised to new life. So I think every night when we go to sleep, it's just this picture and this reminder of our mortality. We will die and apart from Christ, our there's no hope, right? Both physically when we die and spiritually. But then when we wake up, this is where the picture of the morning, the sun rises, we wake up, we physically rise, you know, to a vertical position. We start walking and breathing and normally and, you know, open our eyes. That is a beautiful picture of resurrection to me. It's life after death. And because of Christ, because of his death and resurrection, that's our future. So every time you wake up from your nightly sleep, from the the death of nightly sleep, um, you are rehearsing your future eternal resurrection. One day, thanks be to God, we will wake up to a sunrise that will never set and we will be with God in a perfect state of rest, you know, forever. And that's just such a beautiful, um, gift that God gives us. And I just, I want people listening to this to just start thinking when you wake up in the morning, um, think about the mercy of God. We talk about new morning mercies from Lamentations 3. Um, but like there's a reality to that phrase, new morning mercy that is so, so profound because nothing is guaranteed. None of us is ever guaranteed to wake up from a night's sleep. None of us deserves to have resurrection and eternal life one day, but we do by grace. And I think when we go to bed and then we wake up every morning, it's just an invitation to worship God, to be grateful and also to tell others about this. This this hope can be yours as well in Christ.

Mark Turman: [00:35:39] Yeah, I I love the way that, um, so many times through this work, you, I I would put it this way, you reframe the obvious or what might be obvious to Christians. Um, uh, and so many, uh, interesting ways that I think are so helpful. Uh, you know, we talk about, as you were saying, you know, we talk about being dead asleep. My wife would tell you, oh, he can be dead asleep anywhere, right? Um, I've I've found the ability to sleep in almost any context. Um, um, but I also, um, you know, so often times, uh, I as I get older, talk to people that are getting closer to death in their old age. Yeah. They're like, you know, I just I'm praying that the Lord just takes me in my sleep. Right. Um, and after, you know, pastoring for 40 years, I've only had one occasion that I can think of where somebody called me and said, you have to come, my spouse has passed away and I went to their home and he looked like when he passed into heaven that he didn't move even an eyebrow. Because he looked like, he looked like he was asleep in every way. Yeah, yeah. Um, and that's what probably all of us hope for, right? Is that we live a long, full, uh, rich life and then we just quietly drift into the presence of God. Yeah. And so many times you're pointing out, as you said, uh, you know, Paul seemed to love this word for that death for a Christian was like falling asleep and waking up in heaven. Yeah. Um, but again, reframing something that is, uh, we most Christians know it, but it becomes familiar and it becomes new in a fresh way, which is, I I love this insight. Jesus could have chosen to be resurrected at any time of day. But he chose the morning.

Brett McCracken: [00:37:28] Mhm. And and even in that simple way, Yeah. is retelling the gospel by being resurrected at first light, right?

Brett McCracken: [00:37:39] Yeah, I think because of that reality that he was he was resurrected at the dawn, right? On on on Easter Sunday, we will never, if we believe that that happened, you can never look at a sunrise in quite the same way. Like sunrise will always have that connotation of resurrection for us. And that becomes a beautiful thing. Like, um, sunrise is is beautiful just visually for what it is, but the meaning of a sunrise as a Christian, it carries such theological just beauty. And, um, I just I have a lot of like artistic interest in resurrection and music that kind of conveys the theme of resurrection and movies that have scenes of like a sunrise. And it's usually a scene where there's like hope after like all seemed lost, you know, everything was hopeless and then the sun rises and the movie, the plot turns and suddenly there's hope. And that's because, yeah, the resurrection reframes reality and, uh, helps us to see something like sunrise, uh, as a picture of our future hope. Um, yeah.

Mark Turman: [00:38:55] Yeah, just so, so helpful and so encouraging in that way. Well, we can't keep going down this line without talking about dreams. Um, and I'll I'll kind of set the stage for this a little bit. So, uh, I pastor a chapel and probably a month, six weeks ago, uh, I preached a sermon, uh, and the theme of it began with what happens in your dreams or what God is doing in your dreams. Yeah. Uh, and it was like the entire congregation sat up in their chair just by the mention of the word dreams. Right. Um, so talk a little bit about what you learned about dreams, what the Bible says about dreams, some of the stuff that God accomplishes, uh, in our dreams and even perhaps what Satan is trying to sometimes wiggle in and do in the middle of our dreams.

Brett McCracken: [00:39:44] Okay, I'm going to try to be concise. There's a lot to say on dreams. There's a lot here. And it's a lot here. I could have written the whole book, honestly, on like a theology of dreams. As it was, I was only able to put two chapters in the book specifically on dreams. But the first chapter is on kind of the science of dreaming and the second chapter is more on like scripture's take and kind of how Christians think about dreams. But I actually just a few words about the first chapter, the science of dreaming because I think this as a Christian is is worth marveling at that God would create our bodies with this physical capability to dream, which science is discovering actually does quite a lot for us cognitively while we are asleep. Um, I I use three metaphors in that chapter to kind of summarize the science of dreaming. One is mental digestion. So while you're dreaming, your brain is actually doing a lot of really important digestion and organizing of all the inputs, you know, that have come into your life in your brain during waking life. Dreaming is when our brain kind of starts to make sense of that and process that information. Um, then there's, uh, dreaming is like a creative space where, um, if you are struggling to kind of solve a problem or even if you're like an artist and you're you're like really struggling with like needing a creative breakthrough, in your dreams, like you actually can do some of that creativity. And Paul McCartney said some of the Beatles' biggest hits, like Yesterday, Let it Be, came to him while he was sleeping. Like he woke up and there was like a creative breakthrough. So there's the creativity that's happening while we're dreaming. And then, um, there's also like future planning in the sense of your brain is like experimenting with different possibilities. It's kind of like a a low risk environment for your brain to mentally map out, uh, future possibilities, which I think is just crazy. Like the fact that all of this is happening while you're unconscious and you're not willfully doing this, but God created our brains to do all of this stuff is like a reason to praise God and to thank him for his for for making us fearfully and wonderfully, right? So that's the the first chapter on dreams is on that science, which is really fascinating. Then the second chapter, it goes over the scripture and where dreaming shows up in scripture. And that is also really fascinating because as you know, Mark, the dream, the the the scenes of like dreams are everywhere in scripture. And it's it seems clear from all of these examples, whether it's, you know, Jacob at Bethel or Joseph in in Egypt or Daniel in Babylon, um, you know, even in the New Testament when Paul has his dream about the man, uh, of Macedonia, it's clear that God works in these mental experiences of dreaming. He meets us there, he prompts us, he warns us. Um, sometimes he warns others through our dreams. Um, so it's a realm that God is clearly sovereign over and if he chooses to, he can work through our dreams to advance his purposes in the world. Um, but also, I believe the devil, you know, can get a foothold in our dreams. And there's, I think there's spiritual warfare that happens in our dreams and, um, anyone who's had like a night terror or struggles with nightmares or sleep paralysis, which is a very scary sleep, uh, disorder. Yeah. Uh, I think that people often when they have those experiences, they describe it as like, it felt demonic. It felt like an oppressive presence in my dreams. And I think that that's probably true. There's there's a battle going on in our dream space and, uh, that's something that, you know, makes dreaming, you know, sometimes a foreboding possibility for some people. That's why I think it's good practice to pray before you go to sleep. I do this with my kids. One of my kids in particular has a lot of bad dreams and just praying before bed for God's protection. Like, Lord, sovereignly protect my dreams from the enemy. Um, help help what I dream to be free from any sort of like demonic, uh, foothold or activity. And I think that's a good thing to do, um, especially if you struggle with, uh, nightmares or if your kids do.

Mark Turman: [00:44:45] Yeah. Yeah, I think there's so many good insights there and just, um, I think it was somebody I read, uh, a while back who said, you know, your your brain is actually maybe more active when you're asleep than it is when you're awake. Yeah. Um, and and all of what you just described and and kind of the book of creation, the book of science reaffirming and supporting what scripture is saying, um, that there's a lot going on, uh, while you're sleeping and God is doing some of his biggest and best work in you. Yeah. Uh, in this time and you know, normally we think it's just like some kind of a spiritual timeout that God is putting us into. Um, but I I love that idea that you're mentally digesting what's been going on in your life and even perhaps at a higher level. Um, Yeah. You know, love the love the story of Joseph, Jesus's earthly father who, you know, almost his whole part of the story is orchestrated by three different dreams. Yeah. You know. And I and I when I first read that story and started thinking that way, I thought, well, maybe Joseph was just, you know, difficult spiritually and God had to speak to him this way. Or

Brett McCracken: [00:46:00] It's possible. Yeah, I think it is possible that like getting a hold of people, getting their attention in dreams might be a tactic God uses when it's hard or impossible to get their attention in any other way, in any other way. Yeah. And I tend to, yeah.

Mark Turman: [00:46:18] I tend to cut Joseph a break. He was being asked to accept a very profound reality that would have been hard for anybody. So

Brett McCracken: [00:46:26] You kind of need a supernatural dream in order to fully believe, you know, what that what that was happening to him.

Mark Turman: [00:46:33] Yeah. You was a little bit, uh, I guess a little bit surprising to me, uh, and also affirming that most people don't remember much if anything about their dreams. Yeah.

Brett McCracken: [00:46:45] Yeah, isn't that interesting? That's kind of a clear scientific proven reality that like the vast majority of your dreams are never remembered at all or if you do remember them kind of hazily, right when you wake up, you forget them within minutes. So God created dreams purposefully to be, um, forgotten, which is interesting. And for me, what that one takeaway from that is if when you do have that occasional dream that does stick with you, that you do remember clearly, it was so vivid and you do remember it, that is such an anomaly in the grand scheme of things because you forget 99% of your dreams. I think you might want to pay attention to that and like ponder like, huh, like is God trying to get my attention here? Like why why is this dream sticking with me? And it may not be the case that God is like trying to communicate something through this dream, but I do think it's an interesting exercise to pay attention to the the dreams that you do remember.

Mark Turman: [00:47:54] Yeah. Yeah. Well, you've you've given us a lot to think about, uh, and a lot to consider, a lot of practical recommendations in here for us as believers, uh, in many ways. Um, but I don't want to finish our conversation without some of what you, uh, wrote about regarding Sabbath because as a pastor, this is like a prevalent question that, uh, the typical average healthy Christian coming to worship wants to know, how do I engage Sabbath well? Um, and it's and it's like, am I supposed to just sit in the corner and read my Bible all day? Is that what Sabbath is about? Um, you know, it it I had a great friend of mine, uh, who said to me at one point, hey, if you work with your mind, uh, all week long, you need to Sabbath with your body. If you work with your body all week long, you need to Sabbath with your brain. Uh, I think that's a pretty good principle. Um, give us, uh, a little bit of what you discovered in a fresh way about the Sabbath and maybe some practical recommendations of, hey, this is the way you need to put this rhythm into your life in a more consistent way.

Brett McCracken: [00:49:06] Yeah. Yeah, I have one one chapter of the book that's like dedicated just to the concept of the Sabbath because I think it's obviously very related to sleep and some of the same principles of we've been talking about sleep is an act of practicing your trust in God and giving up your own sense of control and your own pride. I think Sabbath is the same. Like when you choose to actually rest and to carve out time in your week to not just kind of keep going through your to-do list and keep striving and trying to produce and achieve, that's like a countercultural choice that declares to the watching world and to yourself, to your own heart, it's a declaration that I trust God enough to not work for a day. Just like you trust God enough to sleep eight hours a night. So it's it's, I think it's primarily it's this valuable spiritual act of worship that declares our trust in God. Now, a few tips that I would give to people, um, out there. I'm not a strict Sabotarian in the way some some Christians are. I think there's flexibility. I mean, if you read the way Jesus talks about Sabbath when the Pharisees are critiquing him for like doing miracles on the on the Sabbath, you know, he says like, um, the Sabbath was created for man, not man for the Sabbath. Like the this is this is not meant to be a burden. It's not meant to be a legalistic burden on you. It's meant to be an invitation for you to practice the nature of the gospel, which is rest. The gospel is itself is rest. It's grace given to you. It's not achieved. It has nothing to do with your striving. It has everything to do with what Christ has done for you. And so just enter into this rest one day a week as a way to kind of rehearse to yourself the gospel and to show the watching world that we believe that God is a gracious, abundant God who gives us everything we need and we don't need to stress and be anxious about hoarding the manna, so to speak, right? God is going to provide for us. And so I think whatever it looks like for you, whether it's Sunday or some people who like work, you know, at a church, like do like another day of the week as they're like rest Sabbath day. Um, of course, Jewish people Sabbath starting Friday evening, going to Saturday evening, that's that would have been the Sabbath in in Christ's time. Um, but just find the day when you can just fix your attention less on work and striving and more on God's abundance and and use it as an opportunity to worship and to rest in his gifts and to be grateful for his gifts. And also do it communally. I think that's the that's kind of the lost art in practicing of Sabbath. A lot of people these days talk about Sabbath as a very individualistic thing. Like, I'm just going to go like, I'm going to go off into nature on my own and I'm going to go Sabbath. And I get it. It's kind of well-intentioned. And I'm an introvert, so I resonate with the appeal of that. But I think God created Sabbath as a communal practice. It's a it's a thing that sets his people apart, plural. As the people of God, a distinct people through the way that they rest and worship together. That's why going to church is something historically you do on Sabbath. You you worship with the family of God and maybe you have a meal after church together. Um, it's not like you should never like just take a nap by yourself. That's fine. You know, you can have solo time on Sabbath, but also find some time to do it communally because I think the idea is you are communing together and with God, you know, a moment of dedicated hallowed space to do that, uh, as an act of worship.

Mark Turman: [00:53:30] The word the word savor, uh, is what strikes me about here just, you know, uh, savoring, uh, the moments and the good blessings, taking time to really both celebrate and enjoy. Yes, I love that. And, um, and and I mean, what's the point of trying to do this, that or the other if you don't take time to celebrate and enjoy it and enjoy it with people. For sure. You know. And, um, and and, you know, across many people's lives, many Christians' lives, they would tell you, you know, kind of the greatest way to mark a a Sabbath experience is to ponder the the greatness and goodness of God, but to do that in the context of of with people. Um, and being full of that kind of joy.

Brett McCracken: [00:54:15] And with good and with good food and, you know, beautiful like nature. Like I'm all about like going to the beach or going up to the mountains, you know, during Sabbath because that that savor idea is so critical and we savor, we acknowledge God, we worship God by taking time to notice the good gifts that he gives us, to notice the gift of other people who we get to do life with, the the gift of our kids. Like sometimes on a on a weekend, on a Sabbath when I have a little bit more margin, I just like look at my kids playing and I just have time to finally just notice what a precious gift they are. Um, I I have time to like go sit in my backyard and like look at the hummingbirds in the trees or the avocados that are growing in my tree and just ponder like savor the beauty and the majesty of all that God has made and given given to us by his grace.

Mark Turman: [00:55:20] Yeah, I love what one one translation of the Bible says, do no normal work. Get away from the the stuff that you are called to do in the other six days of the week. Um, but that's a great word, especially in a technological age. How can you break the rhythms of what you normally do with technology? How can you not, uh, participate in the normal things that God has for you on those other days, but have a different kind of experience and a different kind of rhythm, a different meal and different engagement with people around you. Such a great word. Brett, thank you for this work. It really is a really, really interesting and intriguing, uh, pursuit of one of God's greatest blessings. And I really appreciate you doing it and taking the time to talk with us about it today. Uh, tell us where people can find the wisdom of sleep and also follow your ministry. Where can we do that?

Brett McCracken: [00:56:14] Yeah, thanks, thanks for this conversation, Mark. It was really fun and, um, people can find the book anywhere they buy books, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Christianbook.com, wherever they typically would find a book. Um, and then my work is mostly at the Gospel Coalition. So you can follow my writing, my articles at thegospelcoalition.org. Uh, or I do have a website, brettmccracken.com where I you can learn more about other books that I've written or, um, yeah, just learn more about me.

Mark Turman: [00:56:47] Okay, we'll put all of that in the show notes for people to follow up with and, uh, would highly recommend that. We'd also let people know that you can get the book on Audible, uh, if you are an Audible listener, uh, you can access the book in that form as well. Want to thank you, but also want to thank our audience for tuning in and being a part of our conversation today. If this has been helpful, we would encourage you to rate and review us on your podcast platform and please share this with others. Uh, word of mouth is one of the best ways that we get, uh, people to connect with good resources. Uh, want to thank our audience for not only listening, but supporting our ministry. Your donations, uh, help us to provide biblical, digital, and free resources like this, uh, to people everywhere around the world through digital platforms. And, uh, if you'd like to know more about Dennison Forum or find other resources like this, you can do that at dennisonforum.org. I want to thank the Dennison Forum team for helping put this together as well as our friends at Sound of a Rose Productions. They are also great partners for us. You can find all information about that in our show notes. And we want to thank you for being a part. God bless you. We'll see you next time on Faith and Clarity.