If I had blogged yesterday, this would have been a totally different blog post then it's going to be right now. Why? Because I feel like I'm changing everyday. Every moment I feel like a different person, like I'm experiencing a different thought, feeling, or emotion or different facet of life. I feel like I'm being awakened to something new constantly, a new way of thinking, of seeing the world, or of seeing a particular person, the Lord, life, or even myself. I love the word awaken. It might be my favorite word right now. By might I mean definitely. I think I love it so much because in it I find hope. In order to awaken something, the something has to already possess the ability to be awakened, to be stirred to consciousness. That seems like a no-brainer comment but I think that's important. You can know something but not be awakened to the reality or gravity of it. You're simply asleep. Webster defines awake as the following: 'to cease sleeping; to become aroused or active again; to become conscious or aware of something; to arouse from a sleeplike state." To me, to awaken something means to activate in someone something that it already has; awakening simply brings to life something that already exists. Let me explain.
I'd first like to draw attention to the picture to the left. Someone try to tell me this couple isn't awake. And I don't just mean physically (I'm not trying to insult anyone's intelligence by that question). This couple is awake to a bevy of emotions and thoughts and feelings. I love this picture a lot. I have no clue who this couple is. I found this picture on the internet once and saved it on my computer I liked it so much (Weird? Maybe. But Mary does the same thing so I feel okay about it). I've seen lots of pictures of couples in love but I like this one in particular because it happens to be in front of one of my faaaaavorite places on earth, the Fontana de Trevi in Rome. I can't help but feel alive when I'm there or when I look at a picture of this fountain. It's magical to me; it does something to my soul. All that to say, these people are awake and I love it. Watching someone embrace life sparks life in other people that is inevitably contagious.
Anyway, visuals always help me. But on to the word awake... If you're asleep it doesn't mean you don't exist; it just means you're not aware of what's going on around you. You can be in a room full of tons of people but if you're asleep, you may as well have not been there. You missed every conversation, interaction, joke, laugh, etc. You were asleep. I feel that way about my life a lot, like I'm asleep. I'm obviously living, I have a pulse, I breathe (with difficulty lately, compliments of bronchitis but I'm totes on the up!) And I'm reminded of life in moments when I'm brought to tears by life's joys and life's pains. And I'm reminded that I'm alive by how much I hurt or how much I dream or how much I desire or moved I can be by another human being. I think that proves life. If anything it proves the fragility of my own heart to be moved by this life and by the people in it, whether for good or bad. But if I had to describe my last semester in a word, I'd say I've been asleep. I've definitely had moments of wakefulness (is that a word?) this last semester. But so do most people throughout the night as they sleep. Just because you wake up some in the night while you're sleeping doesn't mean you're necessarily conscious or aware of what's happening around you. I'm not anyway. I've spent this last semester in a slumber. In a spiritual slumber. In a life slumber. I haven't been able to articulate what I've been experiencing well to myself and especially not to other people. It's no wonder, I've felt asleep. Life's just been dull to me. I know I experience life differently than a lot of people and my expectations for the way I want to experience the Lord may be a touch unrealistic this side of Heaven and given the state of my sinful heart. But when Jesus said He came to give life and life to the full and be that Life for me (John 10:10), I feel like He meant it. I just don't think God throws around words like I do or people do. I feel like He means what He says. And all that to say, if life to the full is a possibility, then why am I not living and walking in it? I can think of several reasons off the top of my head (namely that I have no clue what life to the full would look like practically other than different than what my life is right now) but I want it. If I can have life to the full, I want it. And if Jesus is willing and able to give it, then I want it. Why? Because it's how we were designed to live. We were designed to be alive, awake to life.
That doesn't mean a life without pain. Gosh, by no means. I was talking to a friend yesterday about the phrase "full of life." I love when people tell me I'm full of life. Not for for the same complimentary reasons I think they mean it. When I think life, I think of all of it. It's a dichotomous paradox: joy and sorrow, laughter and tears, love and pain, trials and triumphs, success and failure, etc., etc. And when someone says I'm full of life, I like to think I'm full of all those things, not just what we naturally think are the positives. Because life is about experiencing all those things, being awakened to the reality of the pains of life in order that we might appreciate the joys that God graces us with. And in all of that, glory be to God. Sadly, I have fallen asleep to that reality. That both sides of life are just as beautiful. Wise Spurgeon says "The worst trial is no trial at all." Yeah, I agree. Pain and hurt are not the worst thing that happen to you or me. Deadening your soul, numbing your heart and eventually hardening it and falling asleep to life, to the whispers of the Spirit and the Voice of the Divine is the most grievous thing I can think that can happen to me. And not that people don't have good reason to deaden their hearts and their souls. Without Jesus and the hope and love that He offers, that makes perfect sense. That's the best self-defense mechanism I've heard of. Life really can suck and pain really is real. But with Jesus, He says the opposite. He says "Wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead, rise from the dead and Christ will shine on you" (Ephesians 5:14). Quite the opposite. You aren't commanded to deaden yourself and protect yourself from the possibility of pain. Jesus says rather wake yourself to the reality of His love. I'm not exactly sure how that's going to play out practically over the course of my life as I see my heart get broken in little and big ways almost everyday. But I trust Him. He's God; I'm not.
[And as a significant sidenote, God doesn't love me less because I tend to fall asleep to Him and His Voice, figuratively and literally sometimes. My love for my family and friends doesn't decrease when they go to bed at night; they just maybe can't experience it fully because they're sleeping. If I say 'I love you' or write them a sweet note, it won't mean much to them until they're awake to experience it. But I love them nonetheless. So His call for me to rise isn't a call for me to wake up so He can love me; that part is non-negotiable. It's in His character that He loves me and that isn't going to change. I had to throw that in here because I'm not sure I'm convinced of this quite yet. I'm getting there. Well, no I'm not. His Spirit is getting me there.]
His call for me to wake up, for my soul to arise is for me to walk in His love, to experience the Love that He has for me. Love that promises Life. Life that will not fail, that will not leave. He won't leave me. He will make me alive. The truths that I know in my head He can awaken in my heart. I want that. Awaken, o my soul. Spirit in me, awaken. Jesus, awaken my eyes, my heart, my mind, and my soul to you.
Hmm. Guess that's what I felt like blogging about:)
