Someone asked me yesterday just how big this “puzzle” I keep referring to is. First step, coffee, then working out. Frankly, it’s a big puzzle, a thousand pieces maybe, and maybe I don’t know what the picture is I’m trying to put together. But it has something to do with wholeness, with well being, with flourishing, and with love.
Habits nail us, don’t they? Or they set us free, depending on what habits we’re talking about. Usually, for most of us, habits are a bit of mixed bag, we moving back and forth between the good and the bad and the gradient, like kids on a summer swing.
But sometimes, we get a sense, an intuition, a word from God, or a sudden impulse, that it’s time for something to change. Maybe we know why, maybe we don’t, but it’s unmistakable—that announcement in our spirit that here’s a thing we need to let go. Or here’s a thing we need to pick up. And so we decide to think about deciding to follow this notion inside us. We think about it.
Finally, after hours, days, or decades, we finally make the decision.
And then, of course, the war begins.
The next piece of the puzzle for me? The next intuitive move announcing itself?
Sleep.
I’ve made no commitment to this yet, just so you know. I sleep between 5 and 6 hours a night. Sometimes 4, rarely 7. It doesn’t take a ton of research to know that in both the long and short term, sleep deprivation isn’t good. I’ve been burning the candle at both ends for years, been prideful about it, frankly, assuring anybody that asked that I was fine. Not so true, as it turns out. Oh, I function fairly well, but in the battle with depression (“I suck, I suck, I suck”) and lack of energy, brain fog and cognitive performance, my lack of sleep has been beating the hell out of me.
I suspect it has been doing that for years.
So your job now, O Reader, is to convince me to go to bed, and sleep. Like I said, I’ve made no commitment to this yet. Help me out here.
This puzzle is going to wind toward a picture of what my real issues are, the things that are going on in the deeper places, the intuition behind all the smaller impulses. You might say, if you’re the kind of person that says this, that God is talking to me about something. Maybe so…maybe so.
Whoever has ears to hear…
JEFF BERRYMAN 
I appreciate your wanting to make healthier choices for your life. Don’t you find it interesting that we don’t ever seem to be tempted to make the good choices for ourselves? Whoever said, i was tempted to eat steamed broccoli today or i gave in to the temptation to go to bed early? For those who don’t believe in God, and hence equally disbelieve in a devil, how would they explain that?
It’s amazing the number of obstacles that present themselves when it comes to getting enough sleep. There’s that tv show we “need” to watch to stay current on the story line or “i spent all day doing things for others that even though it’s 10 PM, i need to watch this 2.5 hour movie to do something for me”. Giving up late nights (i.e. being in bed by 10 PM) was something i gave up for Lent one year. It was a challenge and i can’t say i did it perfectly. Good luck with this one. You’ll definitely need to ask the Lord for His power to make this a life practice. I think there is a reason He had to command us to rest (or observe the Sabbath). I wonder if it helps to view it like when you were parenting little people. You had to make them go to bed early. You knew how cranky they got with less than 12 hours of sleep, or what have you. Maybe you need to make sure God’s little person (you) goes to bed early enough 😉