awake or die!

One of the underlying assumptions that you will notice running through these blogs is that the physical realm is a window into the spiritual realm.  The greatest example of this is Jesus, who not only taught through parables, but who pointed to his physical being and said, "If you have seen me, you have seen the Father."
So one of my goals in life is to wake up to what God is trying to say to us through the physical realm that we have been created to live and experience God in.

One of the greatest dangers in life is to be lulled into a sense of complacency, where we go through life not fully alive, not fully engaging with our Creator or His call on our life.  Jesus' harshest words were directed to such people, even though they claimed to be his representatives.  To the church at Laodicea he said that he wished that they would either be hot or cold, because if they continued to only be lukewarm he would have to spew them out of his mouth.  Just a few days ago I feel like I got a similar wake-up call, only it came in a very physical, dramatic way.  I have a terrible weakness in that I can easily fall asleep at the wheel.  Once, a couple of years ago, I dozed off while driving home from work.  I awoke from my 2 or 3 second slumber to find that the car had drifted across the oncoming lane and onto the shoulder, the roughness of which woke me up!  That shook me up pretty bad . . . but not bad enough to really do anything about it.  I thought I could somehow will myself to never let that happen again.  Well, I discovered just a few days ago that I had been lulled into a very dangerous sense of complacency.  This time I was driving on a busier stretch of road and wasn't even aware that drowsiness was coming on me.  Before I knew it, I was waking up, just like it had happened before, with the car having crossed over into the opposite lane and was heading onto that shoulder.  This time, though, there was another car involved, and it had swerved so far over off it's shoulder that it had crossed a ditch and was trying to avoid hitting a fence.  I'm embarrassed to say I didn't stop to make sure the other driver was OK (but from what I could see in my rear view mirror he/she seemed alright).  But I knew now that I was not OK.  I've decided I need to take steps correct this problem before I kill myself or someone else!

As serious as this physical problem is, there is no doubt in my mind that it pales in comparison to the spiritual condition of our souls.  It is so easy - way too easy - to assume that we're doing OK spiritually, when in fact we may truly be in a similar situation, spiritually, that I found myself in at the physical level.  Those of us in the Church are familiar with Jesus' warning to the Laodicean believers and we try hard to think that we're not as bad as those lukewarm people.  But it should be extremely sobering to us to read Jesus' warning to the
Ephesian church, the strongest and most pre-eminent of the churches that Paul had established.  If I'm not mistaken, this was the church where the beloved apostle John (the one disciple who enjoyed the most intimate relationship with the Lord) spent his last years of ministry before being imprisoned on the Isle of Patmos.  In Revelation 2 Jesus warns this church that they had lost their "first love", and if they failed to repent  the lampstand (their light source) would be removed from their midst.

Are we as Christians being the salt and light in our society that Jesus said his disciples should be?  Or are we like the salt that has lost its savor and (to quote Jesus) "is only fit to be thrown out and trod underfoot"?  I for one know that I am far from measuring up to Jesus' requirements to be his disciple.  At times I wonder if I have ever even truly entered into the reality of the gospel (good news) that Jesus proclaimed.  My grasp of it has only been an intellectual one.  I've had no deep-seated, heart felt, awareness of my sinful, lost condition, which is a pre-requisite to genuine repentance and a joyful receiving of God's forgiveness.  I'm among those whom Jesus described as loving little because they've been forgiven little.  I've always been a "good guy", doing my best to be obedient to God and His Word - probably much like the rich young ruler whom Jesus loved, but whom Jesus said was not yet a part of God's kingdom.  I may be one step ahead of that young man because I have given my life over to following Jesus.  But something is still seriously wrong in me.  Like those who suffer from sleep apnia (which could be my problem and the cause of my falling asleep at the wheel) I feel like I'm oxygen deprived, spiritually.  I was raised and trained in studying the written Word, but I have great difficulty knowing and relating to the Spirit, who is the breath of God to us.  I feel like I was brain-damaged at (my spiritual) birth because although there was plenty of water (the written Word) there was a lack of oxygen (the Spirit). [Not to point a finger at the part of the Church I was raised in.  Those in the Church who emphasize the Spirit are often lacking in the Word, so there can be imbalance in either direction.]

But I am not without hope!  I take inspiration from Jesus' parable of the persistent widow and the the unjust judge.  I am determined to not let go of my persistent prayers, asking the Father to finish the work He has begun in me.  Jesus is the one I look to to heal whatever damage the "lack of oxygen" in my new birth may have caused.  I long to breathe deeply of His Spirit, as well as to drink deeply of His Word.  He has given me great hope that he will indeed fulfill this longing within me and within all who realize that if they don't get more oxygen, they either die or live well below their potential. If we fail to wake up to our true condition we are headed for a life-threatening collision with reality.