The Holy Spirit’s Presence in Your Brain During Sleep
One of the things I love about studying the doctrine of the Holy Spirit is that it helps me learn how to discern where the Spirit is at work in the world around me. And from my study I have come to conclude that the Spirit is at work in my brain while I’m sleeping. Why?
Present Everywhere, Sustaining Life
As a divine person, there is nowhere we can flee from the presence of the Spirit (Psalm 139:7). Therefore, by the Spirit, God “fills everything in every way” (Ephesians 1:23) and is “over all, and through all and in all” (Ephesians 4:6). On account of this, Hendrikus Berkhof correctly recognizes that “insofar as the Spirit is the name of God in action, nothing short of the whole creation can be the field of his operation.”[1] This would necessarily include the human brain.
The Spirit is present everywhere sustaining life. Expressing this, Christians have sometimes referred to the Father as Creator, the Son as Redeemer, and the Holy Spirit as Sustainer. Likewise, the Nicene Creed, which is regularly affirmed in liturgical churches, affirms that the Spirit is the “Lord, the giver of life.” This, I think, includes within our brains, while we sleep.
The Spirit in the Brain
One might think that what happens in our brains is a “natural” process. But it is not natural, if one means apart from God. Nothing about the human being is “natural” in the sense that we are created and sustained, from start to finish, by God. As Job declared, “the Spirit of God has made me,” and “the breath of the Almighty gives me life” (Job 33:4).
A False Dichotomy
When it comes to issues of science and biology, sometimes people make a false dichotomy by thinking that either God is at work, or “natural processes” are at work in our bodies. It doesn’t, however, have to be an either-or option—both can be true. Similarly, Christians affirm that God is at work knitting each child together in their mother’s womb (Psalm 139:13), even though we learn in health class the natural processes of child development from the point of fertilization, to the development of an embryo, through to a fully formed fetus. Likewise, the Spirit works in and through the natural processes of our brain to renew our brain functions.
Why so Tired?
Notwithstanding any sleeping problems one might have, I figure that often the answer is that one needs to cooperate better with the Spirit. This is similar to how the Spirit builds our character. The apostle Paul tells us that the Spirit produces “fruit” in our lives of “love, joy, peace, patience,” etc. (Galatians 5:22), and yet he also tells us that in order to see this fruit present in our lives, we need to be “led by the Spirit” (v. 18) and to “keep in step with the Spirit” (v. 25). Likewise, we can choose to either “resist the Holy Spirit” (Acts 7:51), or we can choose to “keep in step with the Spirit” by ensuring we get enough sleep. And the Spirit will then do the work necessary to renew our brains.
Just as God sends the Spirit throughout creation to “renew the face of the ground” (Psalm 104:30), the Spirit is present and at work in my brain, restoring its functions while I am sleeping. And this is one way that when “I lie down and sleep … the Lord sustains me” (Psalm 3:5).
PR
Notes
[1] Hendrikus Berkhof, The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit: The Annie Kinkead Warfield Lectures, 1963–1964 (Richmond, VA: John Knox Press, 1964), p. 94.
