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Your Internal Clock May Need To Be Reset

It’s really important to correctly time your sleep or your internal clock can get all messed up. 

Your internal clock may need to be reset

We just changed our clocks forward last Saturday. It was the big one because we lost an hour of sleep. I’ve heard that it can take up to three days to adjust to that time change. 

I believe our bodies know when to get rest, but I also believe we can mess up our internal clocks so that our bodies don’t act properly.

Sunday, the day after the clocks changed, I felt pretty tired in the afternoon. I had had a tiring day the day before and I also lost an hour of sleep that night. 

I use a lot of energy preaching on Sundays so I am often tired in the afternoon … this particular afternoon a little more so. 

By evening I had recovered and had my energy back. I watched a hockey game that disappointed me and left me feeling unsettled. So I put on a movie which would run until it was time to head to bed … to be fair, a little later than my regular bedtime.

Because I had taken a nap in the afternoon, by the end of the movie I was still wide awake. But it was late and time to turn in for the night, so I made my way to bed. 

The problem was that my mind was going a mile a minute. As sleepy as I had been in the afternoon, my brain was now firing on all cylinders as I lay in bed. 

I tossed one way, then another. I fixed my pillow and turned some more. 

My internal clock was so messed up that I just could not get to sleep.

It’s like Christmas Eve for children. The anticipation of the next day – Christmas morning with all the presents – keeps them from settling down and sleeping. They are wide awake. 

That’s why so many kids have melt downs on Christmas Day, even though it is one of their happiest days of the year. Their internal clocks are so messed up they are tired when they should be wide awake.

I’m not sure how long I tossed back and forth in bed, but at one point I decided that was enough. I needed something to settle me down. 

They say it’s not good to have a screen on just before you go to sleep, but I have a great ability to fall asleep with a TV on. 

So I got up, headed downstairs and put on another movie. 

It was an action movie. For most people that would work against them sleeping, but for me it doesn’t matter. 

It was not long before my eyes were shut and the flickering light from the television was bouncing off my closed eyelids.

Maybe the movie wasn’t good. All I know is that it got my internal clock to work again. When I woke up, I shut everything down and went back to bed … and straight to sleep. 

Here’s the thing: There are times in your life when your spiritual clock will be more apparent in your life. There will be interest; there will be opportunity. Don’t miss paying attention to your spiritual clock. You might have a hard time getting it on track if you mess it up.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What can you do to pay attention to your spiritual clock? Leave your comments and questions below.

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I Was So Tired After My Recent Road Trip

There is something about being on the road that tires me out.

I’m not sure what it is … maybe it’s not sleeping in my own bed or maybe it’s keeping later hours, but being away from home just tires me out!

I don’t know how many times I’ve come home after a vacation and said, “Man, I need a vacation from my vacation!”

The whole idea of vacation is to relax and rest, but I’m always tired after my rest and relaxation time way.

It must be a bit of a mental thing, because when I lived in a dorm for four years I was able to feel rested, even though home was really halfway across the country.

Home is where you tell yourself it is, but once you settle on it, you get your full rest there; anything else kind of drains you a little.

This past week both my wife, Lily, and I were away from home – in separate directions. I was in the Toronto area for three days and Lily was in Ottawa for that same period of time.

I stayed one night in a hotel and the next night at our daughter’s place. Lily spent her nights at her mother’s. We were both in pretty familiar and friendly territory.

But when we both arrived home Saturday afternoon, we were wiped. If we hadn’t had things to do, both of us could have easily taken a big ol’ afternoon nap.

In fact, that might have made us more productive!

Our time away was spend with people we knew well. Both of us had a mixture of business and family time in our itineraries. But it seemed to drain us and not give us renewed energy.

I’ve talked to other people who share similar thoughts. The consensus is if you can make it back home after a full day away, it’s better being home than staying overnight somewhere else and getting back the next day.

You might think this feeling would be detrimental to hotels and resorts, but they seem to be able to sustain a good business. We like home, but obviously we also like to travel and experience other places.

I’ve been on vacations, missions trips, and business trips, some lasting as many as four weeks. But no matter where I’ve been, or how long I’ve been away, when I get back home it feels different.

When you get home, that’s when you really are at rest. Your whole body relaxes physically and mentally … that is unless you’ve been at home for a long period of time and find yourself a little stir-crazy. That’s when some time away from home will “reset” home for you.

It’s like a computer that’s been working for a while but then freezes. You can’t get it to do anything; the mouse won’t work and pressing the buttons does nothing.

All you have to do is hit reset and the computer comes back on, working like it always did.

A brief time away resets home so that coming back, walking in the door, flopping on your bed brings you back to the rest that comforts your body, soul and mind.

It’s home!

Here’s the thing: When you spend regular time with the Lord, that’s home. You know the place, the setup, the atmosphere; there is rest there. But sometimes that regular time gets disrupted, making you spiritually tired. You need to reset, get back to your time with God and find rest.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: When was the last time you reset your time with God? Leave your questions below.

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Choose Your Socks Wisely

This is a reblog of a post I wrote on May 21, 2013

They say you never know what a day will bring, but sometimes you can sense a day is going to have a certain theme to it. It would be nice if you could go to a drawer and, like picking out a pair of socks, pick your day’s mood (and, of course, check to make sure there’s no holes in it).

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Some people get up on the wrong side of the bed. Others roll out of bed the wrong way and voila, their day seems to be magically selected for them. Fortunately for me, I usually roll out of bed feeling good about what is ahead for me.

Unfortunately, that feeling doesn’t always last very long. The sock drawer effect happens and I pick out a day of frustration to wear like a ratty, old pair of sweat socks.

That happened to me recently. For the first hour or so (getting up, doing my devotions, showering and having breakfast) everything went well. Then I was informed that I needed to drive my wife somewhere on my way to work.

Sometimes it just takes a little rewriting of the daily script to initiate “a day of interruptions” theme. … Oh, and believe me, that did it! Driving Lily to her destination, I was a little agitated. It detained me from getting down to my planned work.

When I finally got to work, in walked an unplanned, unscheduled, perfect illustration for my “interruptions” day. The man was seeking help but each time he had come the previous week, he had been told to come back as I had been on vacation.

The last time he had been told to phone first before he came in. Instead, he just showed up. He was in need of some financial assistance and though I am not a money lender, as a pastor I am used to trying to help out people in his position.

He needed food and the solution was to get him a grocery store gift card. However, after being put off a few times already, he was not in a mood to be put off again.

As I listened to his story, my heart went out to him. Yes, it would be an interruption for me to stop what I was doing to go buy him a gift card, but I felt that’s what I should do.

Unfortunately, he had a few restrictions. He could not go to the grocery store that was the closest to the church. The next closest did not have a store near where he lived.

That meant this interruption would take even longer. Half way there I remembered I had taken my wallet out of my pocket and it was still on my desk at church, so I turned around and went back.

I got the wallet, drove back to the grocery store, and bought the gift card only to notice that the store was affiliated with a grocery store that was close to the church. I could have purchased the card there and saved half the time!

That’s how my day went, one thing after another … until I got home and changed my socks.

Here’s the thing: You can focus on the frustration of each day and get all agitated inside. OR you can view the events of the day as things God brings your way and deal with them as opportunities to serve Him. Your choice.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What is your biggest frustration?  Leave your comment below.