When sleep won't come

''Great is our Lord, and of great power,'' sang the Psalmist. ''His understanding is infinite.'' n1 If God's understanding is infinite, He never sleeps. There is no room in an infinite understanding for unconsciousness. And if man is His image and likeness, as the Scriptures tell us, then man is never unconscious either - never in need of sleep.

n1 Psalms 147:5.

So where does this logic leave you and me when we feel the need for sleep, but sleep won't come? It leaves us with an opportunity to use this understanding of God and man to restore a higher sense of order and harmony to human existence , and in doing so to follow Christ Jesus' example.

Restful and refreshing sleep is normal for as long as we feel a legitimate need for it. Not to be able to sleep is abnormal, and abnormalities, whether sin , disease, or insomnia, can be overcome by utilizing the law of God.

In answer to the question ''How would you define Christian Science?'' Mary Baker Eddy, its Discoverer and Founder, writes, ''As the law of God, the law of good, interpreting and demonstrating the divine Principle and rule of universal harmony.'' n2

n2 Rudimental Divine Science, p. 1.

Man's perfection as the image of perfect God, or Principle, is an abstraction to the human sense of things. It not only doesn't appear to address the problem of sleeplessness; it may seem on the surface to indicate that sleep itself is improper - something we shouldn't even seek. But Principle is not a cold abstraction - it's Love; and Love's healing presence is felt through the ministering Christ. As we're receptive to the Christ-power, it progressively and gently awakens us to the absolute truths of God and man. It heals and regenerates us in accord with God's law. It never separates us from what we need right now.

In Acts the Apostle Paul says of God, ''In him we live, and move, and have our being.'' n3 The man of God's creating can never for a moment become unconscious of God's, good's, ever-presence. The Christ reveals this truth and frees us from whatever would disturb our normal sleep.

n3 Acts 17:28.

None of us as yet comprehends the full significance of our real identity as God's image and likeness. We seem to be mortals who live and move and have our being in a physical world containing actions and substances that are not good and that are able to obscure or nullify the action and substance of good. But, as we strive to discern the truth of creation through prayer and Christian living, we find God's will being done in earth (a human sense of existence) as it is in heaven. We gain dominion over the elements of mortal thought that would disturb our sleep.

Insomnia is a belief that God, good, is sleeping - that eternal good has stopped being good for a while. Or it's a belief that man made in His image is asleep - is temporarily unconscious of being the perpetual expression of infinite good. Or it's a belief that human beings can be disturbed by a power coming from outside the infinity of good - a power that is able to obscure or nullify its ever-presence. But none of these beliefs is true or real, because none is included in God's infinite understanding. Therefore they can be destroyed, and we can have normal sleep. DAILY BIBLE VERSE Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. . . When thou liest down, thou shalt lie down, and thy sleep shall be sweet. Proverbs 3:5, 6, 24