Out of the Slumber
“Wake up Oh sleeper!” Clearer and more needed words were never spoken for this generation. And, those words are from the Bible more than 2,000 years ago. If we are not careful, we find ourselves in a stupor on many levels in our current cultural context. If you are a public transit commuter, you have likely found yourself along with the many fellow travelers looking like a zombie no more than half alive. If you are a tech junkie, you have likely been staring motionless and even lifeless at a screen for hours. If you are someone who plops down in front of a television in the evening with little plan to watch anything particular, you can acknowledge that purpose has gone out the window in those moments. If you are a person who has lost any zest for living or your life has become so predictable as to be script-like, you are going through the motions of living without really living.
Sleeping in bed is a very productive activity. Sleeping without closing our eyes is rarely productive or helpful. The first recharges the batteries. The second drains them. The first allows full rest to take place. The second is a poor substitute for rest. It is disinterested living. It is that kind of slumber that God calls us to awake from.
I would offer a few suggestions to help you get out of the slumber and into the current of meaningful life. First, face a fear and attack it in a way that you have never had the courage to address it. Slumbering is living in a safe zone without too much emotion or zeal one way or another. Addressing fear will always wake us up as fear and the energizing release from it both have a tendency to get the adrenalin running.
Second, ask God to take you where he wants you to go and do what he wants you to do. This is related to the first, but a little different. When we ask God to lead us, he will. The direction he leads us is never a path of comfort. It is, however, always a path of meaning. And, meaning is inherently meaningful which wakes us up.
Third, break disinterest by being interested. The more involved we get with other people, the more intricate and involved our emotions and minds become. The more we stay in our own world, the more disinterested we become in anything meaningful. God did not wire us to live our lives in separate compartments.
There is a living stream that God calls us to be part of. The Holy Spirit wells up in the lives of those of us who truly desire to be filled by Him (John 7). When we are in this life-giving flow, we have little time for slumber but lots of time for living.