Who would have ever come up with the idea of sleep? If it were not part of the very fabric of our existence from the absolute beginning, would it ever have caught on?

I can imagine the first brainstorming session. “Hey! I have an idea. Let’s all take about one third of our day and shut down completely. We won’t be able to hear anything, see anything, do anything. We will be completely unreachable, unless someone in the apartment above us decides to play marbles at 2 am. We won’t eat, or read, or work, or play. It will be like we are dead, except sometimes we will have these thoughts that are extremely realistic in the moment but nearly impossible to remember once we are awake again. Oh, yes. And then if we go for a few nights without doing this, it will drive us mad. What a great idea!”

Would that really have ever been a fad? Would it have been the younger or older generations who had adapted to it first, with all the others mocking it until they figured it out? Who would have thought of this?

And then, who would have ever come up with the plan of taking this third of our day, and therefore a third of our life, and use it to allow our bodies to process everything that has happened. Our cells use it to clean themselves, multiply into more, or eliminate others. Our brain uses it to process information stored in the various parts of our consciousness. Even our organs, muscles, and tissues use it to relax, repair, and prepare for the upcoming day. Who would have built it into the solar system by covering parts of this rotating earth in darkness for hours every day? And then on top of that, built it into the very circuit of the year, where the fields, animals, trees, and the very land itself sleeps in the winter season? Who would have ever come up with this?

I suppose one could say it was an unfortunate accident and all of life just adapted to it. That is possible. But it seems to take a leap of faith I’m not ready to make. The evidence points to a God who has a plan and knows how to build an element of trust and dependence into every day.