Snooze 

What type of person are you? Are you the type that has one alarm and jumps right out of bed at the sound of it? Are you the type of person that has an alarm every five minutes for an hour? I think I am somewhere in between. Today I have been thinking about how much my “snooze” style seeps into my spiritual life. When God speaks. When God nudges. When God commands. Do I jump to action? Am I easily shakened and awakened when I am convicted at his word? Or am I easily stirred back to sleep. 

“Do not give sleep to your eyes, nor slumber to your eyelids …. Go to the ant, O sluggard. Observe her ways and be wise …. How long will you lie down, O sluggard? When will you arise from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest. And your poverty will come in like a vagabond, and your need like an armed man” (Prov. 6:4-11).

“And this, knowing the season, that already it is time for you to awake out of sleep: for now is salvation nearer to us than when we first believed” (Rom. 13:11).

“Watch therefore: for you do not know when the lord of the house is coming … lest he come suddenly and find you sleeping” (Mk. 13:35-36).

The Bible gives us many examples of the dangers of spiritual sleep. Spiritual apathy can set in just as physical apathy if we constantly deny the use of certain muscles. The danger of the “snooze” button is that one can become so immune to the sound that at some point it no longer stirs. God is a gentlemen.  He will nudge your spirit but if we are not responsive that gentle nudge will cease. His voice can easily be lost in the sea of sounds that we filter thru our minds every day. 

Lord, let me never get to a point that your voice does not stir me. Let your conviction always wake me. Let your word always cause a desire for an immediate action on my part.