Wake up, Christian sleeper
By Jessica Brodie
Sometimes, my preteen daughter sleeps like the dead. I go in to wake her for school singing “Rise and shine!” or some such cheery phrase we morning people like to use, and she just lays there like there’s not an inch of muscle beneath her skin.
I shake her—nothing. I see her breathing in and out, and yet there’s absolutely no response.
“Good morning!” I croon and pet her hair, give a little tickle. Nothing.
Finally, I lift one of her arms and then the other, and only then do I believe she’s actually becoming conscious.
Slowwwwwwwly, she cracks an eye. Success—she’s joined the world again.
Reading the Bible today, it occurs to me that sometimes we live our lives like the walking dead. We become asleep to God’s plan and God’s wishes and instead allow our own wants and pleasures, our own desires for “personal happiness,” to dictate the way we live. We get caught up in greed, lust, gluttony, and lies like our days on earth are everything, like Jesus isn’t there watching what we do and how we live. We exist for Self and not for Him.
But the apostle Paul, in his writing to the early church in Ephesus, calls followers of Christ to stop living in darkness and instead to be children of the light, reminding us, “Everything that is revealed by the light is light. Therefore, it says, Wake up, sleeper! Get up from the dead, and Christ will shine on you” (Ephesians 5:14 CEB).
My daughter might not want to wake up in the morning, just like we might not want to stop doing whatever it is that is causing us to live outside God’s way, whether that’s addiction or stealing or whether that’s making food or money our idol. But make no mistake: God is calling us into the light.
It’s time to wake up and live that way.