Sleepwalking through life....

4-8But friends, you're not in the dark, so how could you be taken off guard by any of this? You're sons of Light, daughters of Day. We live under wide open skies and know where we stand. So let's not sleepwalk through life like those others. Let's keep our eyes open and be smart. People sleep at night and get drunk at night. But not us! Since we're creatures of Day, let's act like it. Walk out into the daylight sober, dressed up in faith, love, and the hope of salvation.

1 Thessalonians 5:4-8

Some of you may read the title and wonder what in the world I am talking about. In my journey through the message bible this year, I am in 1 Thessalonians. I read this scripture and God quickened it to my heart and I thought I should share.

While I don't have any experience with sleepwalking personally, I do like to sleep. I am a fairly "active" person and have been since birth. My mom would tell you freely that when I was little, My feet would hit the ground running at 7:30am and wouldn't stop until 7:30pm when I would fall asleep. My propensity to sleep actually earned me an award. When I was at Island Lake in the summer of 2000, I was constantly working with the kids, pouring myself out spiritually, and just tired all the time. I would fall asleep in bible studies, or at our weekly all staff devotional times. The award I got was for "Narcoleptic of the year."

Dictionary.com defines it as:
The act of walking or performing another activity associated with wakefulness while asleep or in a sleeplike state.

Paul makes it clear that as followers of Christ, we have to walk in the light. However, we like to flirt with the line don't we? Sometimes we like to play in the night and flirt with disaster. John 3:19 says: "19 This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil." Deep down, because of the pollution of sin, our sinful desires were ruling. But when we become Christians, we are to leave all that behind and live in the light.
This then, is the intersection. When we try to live our own ways, and play in the dark, while still trying to be a child of the light, we run the risk of sleepwalking.

By that, I mean that we are doing things that religion requires, but we do it out while asleep. We don't clearly discern what God is doing and saying because we are not really awake, we are sleeping. We can go to church, put up a convincing act that we are changing, read our bibles, pray, live like we are living for God. But deep down, in the places that no one sees, at the core of our beings, we are sleeping, not wanting to wake up.

The other problem that we have is we often don't realize we are asleep to the things that God is trying to show us and teach us.

The best solution to this is to dig deep into our beings, find those places that are dark, dank, tepid, and crawling with sin and expose them to the light of God! Jesus Christ... Paul says it well:

But not us! Since we're creatures of Day, let's act like it. Walk out into the daylight sober, dressed up in faith, love, and the hope of salvation.