Have you ever woke up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and then when you lay back down you cannot fall back to sleep? Does it irritate you that you can’t get comfortable or fall back asleep and therefore, the irritatation just keeps you awake even longer? Do your thoughts go from this to that and that to this while you lay there trying to fall back asleep? Well that is what happened to me last night. Now this is rare for me, but for some reason I sensed the enemy was playing games with me and my mind would not shut off.

I think this is more common than I probably realize for people on a nightly basis. The enemy loves to mess with our sleep for sleep is a weapon of our warfare; rest is a gift from our Father in heaven; and our body resets while we sleep. If this is disturbed for whatever reason, we do not operate by design and it manifests in many areas of our lives. The challenge is the longer we go without sleep, we start to get in a pattern of tolerating this pattern and these thoughts won’t leave us alone, then we accommodate them and don’t realize it. All along knowing the Bible says, “It is in vain for you to rise up early, to stay up late, and to eat the bread of hard toil, for He gives sleep to His beloved” (Psalm 127:1).

Last night, while this was happening to me around 3am, I saw a sign in the spirit and heard a loud voice, both saying “STOP!” It was not my voice saying it, it was the voice of an angel declaring “STOP” and as soon as it did, silence happened in my head, my body relaxed and almost immediately I feel asleep and did not wake up until almost 7:30am, which is late for me. One word from heaven silenced all the attacks the enemy was launching at that hour. Friends, you need to sleep, you need rest, it is a weapon of war and I hear in the spirit the Lord saying, “STOP!” Not to you, to the enemy that is against you. It is time for God’s people whom He loves to get the sleep they need for the battle belongs to the Lord. I decree to the enemy “STOP!”