The 5 of us girls are all sleeping together in one room. I woke up the other morning to one of my teammates, Samara, laughing in her sleep. She had no idea what she had been giggling about. On another occassion, one of our many alarms were going off and I threw a book at my teammate, Sarah. I have no recollection of doing this and I find it quite hilarious, yet disturbing at the same time. How could I have no memory of throwing a book at someone? I was asleep, but apparently, not in a very deep sleep. Then, on our way to church on Sunday, I walked into an orange construction cone…and it wasn’t one of those small ones either–this one came up to my hip. I knocked it over and everyone laughed, while I picked it up wondering, “How could I have missed that?”
All of these things got me to thinking…just as we can speak, hear, walk, dream, think, and laugh while we are asleep, we can do many ‘Christian’ things and essentially be asleep towards God. In Romans, Paul talks about the need to wake up. Romans 13:11 “The hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.”
This verse convicts me to want to live a right walk with God rather than a sleep walk. I want to actively and purposely live my life rather than just go through the motions and expect others to take care of the sick, needy and orphaned. As a Christian, we are called to not only preach the gospel, but to actively live it out. We are called to bring hope, love, and joy to everyone we encounter.
As I go about my days, I am praying that my eyes would be open to see the treasures that Jesus has laid before me. He is always so faithful. I shared with you in my Team Gozo blog that gozo means ‘joy’ in Spanish and that we chose verses in Isaiah 55:12 that state, “You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace…”. As we walk down the stairs to go out into the city of Penang, this is what we see hanging up on the wall. I do not consider this a coincidence, but rather God’s gift to prove this is exactly where he intended for us to be.
