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 that you always want 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.