It's a new year. It's a while since I wrote a post. So wake up Anne and write! It's more a devotional than anything in the slightest academic. So wake up and read on!
Waking up is actually in scripture- Isaiah 51:9 says Awake, Awake, Clothe yourself with strength! O arm of the LORD! Awake as in days gone by, as in generations of old.
So I have a theme - Awake, be Alert, Arise!
Do you get up in that order? This morning I determined to do so.
In time for the Morning prayer triplet! I missed last week! Why bother? Because being asleep while comfortable at least, is missing out on abundant life. So you tell me- 'Abundant? during Lockdown?' We can still fill our days with positive action and disciplined work! oh -and exercise. Why do I add that last? A bit loathe? There is physical exercise, soul exercise and spiritual exercise!
Actually this scripture in Isaiah 51 is a prayer to God to get up! Yet do
es he sleep? Anthropomorphisms? (Do we explain God in our human terms in other words?) It is so we can understand something of him but to ask him to wake up? Surely not - Psalm 121 says he neither slumbers nor sleeps 'He who watches over you will not slumber, Indeed he who watches over Israel will not slumber or sleep'. So why does Isaiah (assuming his authorship for now or one of his school (see ch 8)) pray that the LORD wakes up? The everlasting One? the I AM? who ever is, was and will be? He is alive. Would He intervene in our situation here on earth- PLEASE! Isaiah goes on about Rahab as a monster pierced through, thanks presu
mably to God's intervention. God did it once. So I think Isaiah is saying -'Let's pray he deals with our monster problems too!' Wake up Lord... do something for us! Then 'we' as the ransomed of the Lord will return... enter Zion with singing, and everlasting joy shall crown their heads....' That's a
repeat of Isaiah 35:10 the chapter that speaks about the future renewal of the desert to bring flowers, water, and miracles of healing! Then we can all walk along the Highway of Holiness and sing our hearts out to God.
Great - ideal! but is it realistic? Maybe first we have to Wake up ourselves - it's a resurrection the world needs. We have it in Christ the first born from the dead as Paul calls Him. Col 1:18 He is the head of his body, which is the church. He is the very beginning, the first to be raised from death, so that he would be above all others. And as for us - once the sun (/Son?) is awake we need to as well: Eph 5:14 Light shows up everything, just as the Scriptures say, "Wake up from your sleep and rise from death. Then Christ will shine on you." What would that reveal? A sleepy follower or one awake, alert, arisen, ready for action? Wake up and Walk!