4 Reasons God Is Allowing You to Think of Someone When You Lie in Bed at Night

Psalm 3:4-5

Why do you keep thinking about someone when you’re lying in bed at night?

Here are 4 possible reasons for why God is allowing you to keep thinking about someone when you go to bed at night.

1. If You Haven’t Given God the Time in Prayer to Help You Digest What Happened, You Will Often Think About This Person When You Go to Bed at Night

Thinking for our hearts is similar to digestion for our physical stomachs. When you eat food, your body then needs time to absorb the nutrition. Only after the digestion process does the food then exit your body.

Likewise, sometimes your thoughts will not pass about someone because you have not yet absorbed what God wanted you to learn from that relationship experience. If you haven’t taken the time to prayerfully reflect on what happened and what you can learn from it, the thoughts will keep coming. If you’re busy throughout the day, lying in bed at night might be the only time your mind has to think about what needs to be processed.

But when you take the time in prayer to think about it all and give it to God, the thoughts will no longer pop up at nighttime. They will pass because you’ve digested the situation, absorbing what you needed and getting rid of the waste (Matthew 11:28-29).

As Psalm 16:7-8 states, “I bless the Lord who gives me counsel; in the night also my heart instructs me. I have set the Lord always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.”

2. If Someone Wronged You and You Need God’s Justice and Comfort, You Will Often Think About This Person When You Go to Bed at Night

It’s right to have an agitated feeling when someone mistreats you. To forgive someone, you have to first acknowledge their wrongs against you. Otherwise, you might believe you deserved their mistreatment, which is not what God wants you to believe. Psalm 4:4-8 (NLT) explains:

Don’t sin by letting anger control you. Think about it overnight and remain silent. Offer sacrifices in the right spirit, and trust the Lord . . . In peace I will lie down and sleep, for you alone, O Lord, will keep me safe.”

If you’ve just ignored the wrong and it didn’t bother you, you might mistakenly accept this person’s mistreatment of you and believe lies about yourself. Through being agitated in a healthy way at night when you lie in bed, God is prompting you to reject the lies and give these offenses to him so you can move on (Psalm 6:6-10).

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3. If This Relationship Situation Is Causing You to Realize Your Need for God’s Intervention, You Will Often Think About This Person When You Go to Bed So You Can Also Pray to God About All This

Whether you need to heal from an offense, whether you need to move on from someone God doesn’t want you with, or whether you need guidance on how to best pursue a relationship with this person, God desires to help you. But you must come to him. Oftentimes God won’t let you sleep until you cry out to him for the help you need.

• Psalm 3:4-5, “I cried aloud to the Lord, and he answered me from his holy hill. I lay down and slept; I woke again, for the Lord sustained me.”
• Matthew 11:28, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

Only after you come to the Lord with your request will he then grant you the peace your heart needs (Philippians 4:6-7). As Jesus said in John 14:27, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.”

4. If God Is Telling You to Do Something in Regards to This Person, You Will Often Think About This Person When You Go to Bed

When you quiet your heart and sit alone in silence, the Holy Spirit will often tell you what he wants you to do. When you know what it is God wants you to do and then you do it, then you can sleep easy.

Ecclesiastes 5:12, “Sweet is the sleep of a laborer, whether he eats little or much, but the full stomach of the rich will not let him sleep.” In other words, when you’ve done your job, you can rest easy and your mind will be calm. If, for example, you know you need to apologize to this person, or pursue this person, or tell this person how you feel, or distance yourself from this person – whatever it is God is telling you to do, you have to do it if you want peace.

Only after you’ve done what God has said to do will you stop thinking about this situation when you go to bed at night.

Related Article: 4 Things God Does Not Want You to Do When Someone Loves You