I hate sleep. I’m afraid I may miss something.
Yeah, yeah, I know. I “get it” and I get it.
I know that, too. God’s design and all that. It just chaps me a little that somebody who lives to be 90 will spend 30 years of their lives physically unconscious… and then talk about “sleeping in” as if it’s a life goal.
What’s even more disturbing, though, is how easy it is to be asleep when our eyes are open. Spiritually oblivious to a world of life and movement and transformation and possibilities – all ready and waiting… for the awakened spirit.
Snapshots of Awakening
February 3, 1970. In a small Kentucky Christian college, students showed up for what they thought was a routine chapel service. It was anything but. What was supposed to be an hour-long service lasted for 185 hours round the clock. And the lights never went off in the chapel until June 1. People came from miles around. Nobody wanted to leave, except to spread the life and joy to other parts of the country. Their spirits were awakened.
Sage Avenue, Mobile, Alabama… 1985. A man is driving alone in his car, minding his own business. The next minute he is overcome with an awareness of the presence of God and has to pull the car over to make some things right with his Maker. (Back story: people had been fervently praying for him.) His spirit woke up from its slumber.
July 1998. I stood in front of 1,100 people and told a very uncomfortable, but honest shame-to-grace story. In the crowd was a 76-year-old man who said to me that night: “I had resigned myself to live in bondage for the rest of my life, but tonight God set me free.” A saw him a couple of weeks later and asked how he was. “You don’t know how good,” he said with joy. His spirit had been awakened.
The World of the Awakened
When your spirit is awakened, there is a new awareness of the presence of God – not in the “religious” things, but in the little things. The daily things. The holiness of the ordinary.
With an awakened spirit, if feels as if you can hear the Lord breathing, or feel His smile. You feel His delight in you, even as you delight yourself in Him. The desires of your heart fade, and give way to THE Desire of all nations.
An awakened spirit enters new dimensions of surrender to the Lord, but there’s a sweetness to it. This is not the surrender of the defeated foe, but the dropped guard of the intimate lover.
(Are you beginning to feel as though an alarm clock is going off somewhere? Careful about hitting that snooze bar.)
Awakened spirits experience the odd mix of feeling like time is speeding up and wanting to squeeze the most out of every second. Think of Peter on the Mount of Transfiguration. His mind raced with the possibilities, while his heart wanted to freeze-frame the experience and store it in tents. He didn’t want to miss a thing.
I totally get that.
When spirits are awakened, we discover that God is moving faster than the problems are showing up. We begin to see our roles in the bigger scheme of things, and discover new dimensions of agreement and partnership with people. New places of destiny emerge, even for those who felt stuck at a hopeless dead end.
Awakened spirits remember that “His eye is on the sparrow,” and His favor rests on His servants. They discover the Lord doing for them what had been lifelong struggles for them to do themselves, and the doing is easy. Serving the Lord with all their might and with the most zeal become sources of energy rather than exhaustion.
(Is that a wake-up call you’re receiving? Be careful about rolling over and going back to sleep.)
When your spirit is awakened, rest takes on completely new dimensions. You find yourself suddenly free of the compulsive need to do things just to keep moving or stay religious. Your awakened spirit delights in the discovery that God knows how to enjoy the moment. You rest, knowing He is in complete control. But you watch with riveted attention for what He will do or say next.
In the awakened spirit, vision embraces contentment. Great and mighty dreams have their place – in fact, they often appear on your landscape with stunning clarity during those seasons. At the same time, the Lord teaches awakened spirits how to live in the humility of today with joy and peace. And the most wonderful of dreams is no substitute for the wonder of what He is revealing right now.
Awakened spirits sometimes find themselves as passionate for Jesus as John was when he laid his head on Christ’s bosom at the Last Supper. In the process, we may catch a whisper or “hear a heartbeat” we weren’t necessarily intended to share. Sometimes we receive promises and revelation that the Lord requires us, like Daniel, to seal up for a later time.
When spirits are awakened, the heart floods with new gratitude for the love of God. Confidence begins to rise that “the nearness of God is our good” (Psalm 73:28). Regardless of the outward circumstances (which at times can be brutal), our joy comes from knowing that we are being held by arms of love and a righteous, omnipotent hand.
When your spirit is awakened, the lines between time and eternity begin to get a little fuzzy. The smile and tender kiss of a Heavenly Father remind us that “forever” was His idea. And a home waits, so that where He is, we can be also. But until that moment when “today” becomes “forever,” the awakened spirit knows – we are never… ever… forgotten.
Who would ever want to close their eyes or hearts to something – and Someone – so alive?