I wonder if those folks in scripture who seemed to do so many things for their Lord (OUR Lord, as well), ever woke up on the wrong side of the bed -- as my momma used to accuse me. Did they ever wake up slowly, tiredly, painfully? Did they ever feel especially tired? Did they look for a new mattress or a new bed or did they explore new pillows? What what the Palestinian number bed equivalent?
I debate the validity of the statement, "I woke up this morning" since in fact that though my eyes are open and I can think independently, I am indeed not yet awake. No completely. I'm tired. I would like to dismiss the caffeine I have drank and go back to bed. I would like to forget the minutes I've spent trying to get that substance my mama would call "sleepy" out of my eyes, and plunge myself backward into what was never called a deep sleep last nighty. A deep sleep? You know, the kind where there is no amount of tossing and no amount of turning The kind of sleep that you can come out of eventually but unwillingly. A sleep in which you can stumble into dreams and fall out into reality. A sleep you wouldn't trade for anything because it's so sweet and satisfying you already have everything. Fall sleep; you know, the kind where the temps are in the 40s, and it's just cool enough for a blanket but not cold enough for two or for someone to turn the heat on or enough that the crisp, cool sheets are anything but wonderful.
That kind of sleep. The kind where you've had great dreams that leave you longing to go right back to them, and you DO.
Let's explore this idea some more, dipping our toes into the river of sleep.
In the 17th chapter of Proverbs, we read, "22 A cheerful disposition is good for your health; gloom and doom leave you bone-tired." There seems to be a clear-cut difference in gloom and doom and being tired and sleepy. An unwillingness to wake up seems to be different than gloomy, doesn't it? I hope for I am unwilling, but not gloomy (yet).
It's all part of the plan, isn't it? Don't you think? So it seems in the book of Isaiah, the seventh chapter. We read, "So Isaiah told him, "Then listen to this, government of David! It's bad enough that you make people tired with your pious, timid hypocrisies, but now you're making God tired. So the Master is going to give you a sign anyway. Watch for this: A girl who is presently a virgin will get pregnant. She'll bear a son and name him Immanuel (God-With-Us). By the time the child is twelve years old, able to make moral decisions, the threat of war will be over. Relax, those two kings that have you so worried will be out of the picture."
I would have to figure that if things are so long-winded, so boring, so awful that you're even making God tired and sleepy, well, you might want to consider starting over or at least going a different way. The sign that God promised here, by the way, He gave and it still wasn't perceived or understood. You know it to be true: Son, virgin birth, named Immanuel, 12 years old and left at the temple? Heard of that? If you haven't, we need to carve out more time to talk than we have.
Finally, "The Master, God, has given me a well-taught tongue, So I know how to encourage tired people. He wakes me up in the morning, Wakes me up, opens my ears to listen as one ready to take orders. The Master, God, opened my ears, and I didn't go back to sleep, didn't pull the covers back over my head."
A well-taught tongue. That's my aim. To encourage tired people. People tired of the same ol' government, the same tired old elections, the same old day-to-day: murders and mahem, taxes and terribles and such as that. Encourge tired people who want so much more for their lives than they have they're actually willing to work for it. Things are not getting better as we wait at the spiritual bus stop for the driver of the bus to come by and pick them up for eternity so they keep working at it, helping God (who needs no help at all).
To encourage tired people is an admirable goal. We all bought into Obama because we all feared the same old, till the new young proved to be worse than even the same old. To encourage tired people is what we need right now from SOMEONE; to get us past the politics, the division, the problems. We need to come together and look past race and gender and age and all the things that keep us apart and focus on all the reasons for us to come together...like preservation of the species. You know, simple things like that.
How?
How do we do it now, at this late hour?
The Bible says in Jeremiah's prophecy, "23-24A Message from Israel's God-of-the-Angel-Armies: 'When I've turned everything around and brought my people back, the old expressions will be heard on the streets: 'God bless you!'...'O True Home!'...'O Holy Mountain!' All Judah's people, whether in town or country, will get along just fine with each other.
25I'll refresh tired bodies;
I'll restore tired souls.
26Just then I woke up and looked around—what a pleasant and satisfying sleep!"
I feel better already.
Turn to God for refreshment, for restoration, for reclamation and for reward. He will restore tired souls, scripture tells us.
Wake up and smell God's coffee. What a pleasant and satifying moment. My tired body and my tired soul is in need of restoration. Come Lord, come.
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