When Your Conscience Keeps You Awake (Psalm 15-17)

A Few Thoughts to Consider

Do you find sleep difficult when your conscience attacks you?

According to Penn Medicine News, about 25% of Americans struggle with insomnia each year.^[1] While numerous medical reasons undoubtedly fall outside the scope of this devotional, Psalm 16 indicates one of the primary reasons for lack of sleep is loss of confidence. In verses 7-9, David writes:

⁷ I will bless the Lord who counsels me—
even at night when my thoughts trouble me.
⁸ I always let the Lord guide me.
Because he is at my right hand,
I will not be shaken.

⁹ Therefore my heart is glad
and my whole being rejoices;
my body also rests securely.
¹⁰ For you will not abandon me to Sheol;
you will not allow your faithful one to see decay.

In his thought-provoking translation of the Hebrew Bible, Robert Alter translates verse 7 as “I shall bless the Lord Who gave me counsel through the nights that my conscience would lash me.”^[2] Being lashed by your conscience can be good if you have unconfessed sin in your life, but it can be a terrible burden when it torments you over matters outside your control.

If this is where you find yourself today, there is hope, and you can retrain your conscience to fall under the authority of God’s Word. The next time your conscience lashes you over things outside your control, be like David and pray this kind of prayer.

A Meditation to PRAY

Praise | Lord, thank you for giving me counsel and proper instruction. I praise you for always wanting what is good for me.   

Release | I give you my fears to you. You see what I can and cannot control, and for those things I cannot, I release them to you.  

Ask | Retrain my conscience. Help me to rejoice in you, even when I’m tempted to be afraid.

Yield | You will not abandon me. Your promises are true. I am your child; you love me and have a purpose for my life.

A Challenge to Act Like Christ  

In Acts 2:25, the Apostle Peter points to Psalm 16:8 and says, “I saw the Lord ever before me; because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken.” This tells us something about the nature of how we are to read the Psalms today. We do not see them only as a collection of inspirational ancient literature but as applicable to our Christian life. Even in some of the most challenging situations we face, we can look back and take joy in the comfort these words offer.

Ultimately, Psalm 16 is a “psalm of confidence.”^[3] In the Apostle Peter’s case, this confidence gave him the strength to ultimately die for his belief in Christ. As Peter Craigie notes,

“The psalmist’s confidence in the face of mortal threat is based first upon the fact that the Lord is in front of him (v 8), indicating both God’s protective presence and also the psalmist’s obedience to the divine law, and second upon the fact that the Lord is his ‘right hand’ (v 8b), holding him firmly through the tremors that seek to shake him into death.”^[4]

So tonight, if the enemy of your soul bombards your conscience over mistakes you’ve made in the past, see this for what it is and pray the words of Scripture over your life.

[1] "1 in 4 Americans Develop Insomnia Each Year," Penn Medicine, June 5, 2018, https://www.pennmedicine.org/news/news-releases/2018/june/1-in-4-americans-develop-insomnia-each-year.

[2] Robert Alter, The Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary (The Writings), vol. 3 (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2019), 52.

^[3] Peter C. Craigie, Psalms 1–50, 2nd ed., vol. 19, Word Biblical Commentary (Nashville, TN: Nelson Reference & Electronic, 2004), 155.

^[4] Peter C. Craigie, Psalms 1–50, 2nd ed., vol. 19, Word Biblical Commentary (Nashville, TN: Nelson Reference & Electronic, 2004), 157.