Do not love sleep or you will grow poor; stay awake and you will have food to spare (Proverbs 20:13).

Whenever I fly from Holland to Ohio -- a six-hour time difference -- I experience a phenomenon that can be both frustrating and awesome.  On the one hand, I simply cannot help it and find myself completley powerless; but on the other hand, it can have many positive side-effects that make me feel exceptionally powerful... It's the ability to automatically and irrevocably wake up at four o'clock in the morning.

I'll be sleeping hard in a dark, quiet house, but then somewhere around four o'clock my eyes will pop open, and it's practically impossible for me to fall back asleep -- even though it may be several hours before the rest of the household begins to stir.  I used to try and fight it be willing myself to stay in bed, tossing and turning in tortuous inability to sleep.  But inevitably, there would come a point of realization that my body was completely convinced that it was time for my lazy bones to get moving -- and so, I'd get out of bed and get on with my day, regardless of how inappropriately early it might be.  Nowadays I don't even try to fight it.  When my body is experiencing east-to-west jet lag, I just go with it now.

So what do you do when you pop out of bed, fresh as a daisy, at four o'clock in the morning?  You get an awful lot accomplished, that's what.

It's usually quiet stuff, out of respect for others who are trying to sleep -- things like reading or journalling or catching up on correspondance or spending time with God in prayer and Bible study.  It really is amazing to see how much can be accomplished before dawn breaks.  Some of my most meaningful, most memorable times of connection with God have happened in that context.  I've almost always completely emptied my e-mail inbox within a couple days of westbound trans-Atlantic travel.  I catch up on stuff that's needed to get done for some time -- and it feels great to be so productive... at least until the jet lag starts wearing off...

Of course, the opposite happens when you go from west to eat (i.e. from Ohio to Holland).  In those circumstances, it can feel almost impossible to get out of bed in the morning.  You just wish you could live in a cave and hibernate like a bear.  And even when you do manage to drag yourself out of bed and go through the motions to get ready for a day in the new time zone, you feel like you're swimming in liquid concrete.  Everything is super-slow.  Painful, even.  It feels like a tremendous effort to accomplish even the most trivial tasks.  Losing one's job and falling into hunger and abject poverty doesn't seem like such a bad option -- as compared to the curse of having to leave one's beloved beauty-sleep.  But again, the jet lag eventually wears off.  And in those circumstances, I have to keep reminding myself that if I've lost your livelihood in the meantime, I'm going to be kind of disappointed about that in the long run.

Jet lag is a bizarre phenomenon that we have to deal with in our era of practically-instantaneous international travel.  But it's also an instructive phenomenon.  It dramatically demonstrates the difference between a sluggard and a conscientious worker.  It allows me to experience what it really would feel like to be chronically lazy and in love with my bed; and it allows me to experience what it really feels like to be motivated and industrious.  And I've got to tell you:  the wakeful way of doing things feels a whole lot better.  I've joked at times that I would often prefer to travel from Ohio back to Holland via Los Angeles and Hong Kong -- just so I could do it the east-to-west way of traveling.  But regardless of the quirks of international travel, it's good to remember that we should not love sleep, lest we become poor.  Instead, we should stay away, and we'll have plenty of food to spare.