My baby is a bad sleeper. Well he does pretty well once he’s asleep I guess. He is just really bad at going to sleep. He hates it. He fights it. He twists his body this way and that. He grunts and makes any noise he can think of. He tenses his arms and legs as if he is morphing into the Incredible Hulk. He flops his head backward and then forward again, all out of fear that if he is still even for a second, he might succumb to his dreaded enemy, sleep.

The crazy thing is sleep is good for him. He gets grumpy when he gets tired, and he is always happy after a nap or good night’s sleep. No matter how many times he wakes up from a nap feeling great, however, when the next nap time rolls around, he is ready to fight. As I stood there in his dark room the other night, shifting from foot to foot with him in my arms, waiting for his resistance to be spent, I realized that our exhausted dance must look pretty familiar to God.

How many times has God come to me with my best in his heart only to find me fighting back. I make excuses, rationalize, and ignore him. I commit to pray more about it (which is often the spiritual way to put things off). I wrestle and wrestle and God waits patiently. How many times have I awoken after some new challenge that I had been avoiding only to find it was exactly what I needed.

I’ll go home tonight to a little boy ready to fight sleep, and I’m ready for it. After he is asleep I’ll sit down with God again to question His plans and fight His will. Thankfully he is also ready.