Open the Dawn

photo: rapgenius.com

Awake, O Sleeper!--Ephesians 5:14

The moon has reigned long enough.
Time has come for light, for darkness to run away.
You have slept in the deep, but I pull back the veil.

I command the moon to fly away and bring light into the heavens.
I made brilliance, then formed your very eyes so that you might see it.
Open them and exult!
Arise with me. Join in the song of morning.
I open the skies for your delight.

I AM the dawn.
I AM the morning.
I AM the sun.
Every day from horizon to horizon, until I Myself unravel time.
I made this day for you.
Look at it and live!

The Real Zombie Walk

Everybody's talking about a coming zombie apocalypse.
I used to think they were joking.

After all, what is a zombie?
The dictionary says it is "the body of a dead person given the semblance of life, but mute and will-less, by a supernatural force, usually for some evil purpose."
Colloquial observation  tells me that a zombie is a mindless, soulless, automaton. Neither reason nor sentiment affects it.  Kill one if you can, because nothing else will stop it.

Don't think you've run up against a zombie lately? 
You have. 
Every time we see someone intentionally follow a course they know is wrong or destructive.
Every time someone refuses responsibility they know is rightfully theirs.
Every time someone denies obvious truth or reason.
Every time someone does wrong because someone else has. 

Take a close look at their blank stare. You've seen it before, and often. 
 And what's worse, we've been warned:
They refused to pay attention; stubbornly they turned their backs and stopped up their ears.--Zechariah 7:11
They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.--2Timothy 4:4
Make the heart of this people calloused; make their ears dull and close their eyes.--Isaiah 6:10
To whom can I speak and give warning? Who will listen to me? Their ears and closed so they cannot hear.--Jeremiah 6:10

People who function without thought, without reflection, without reason--they are the zombies. They probably won't groan or wear that telltale blood on their shirt, but they are zombies nonetheless. 
And, in their own way, they are just as dangerous.

Only One Thing: Love and A Good Hair Day

You know what your hair looks like in the morning.
It's everywhere, sticking up in all directions--bunched up, knotted.
And one of the first things you do is to run a brush through the mess.
Bet you didn't know it was like the Spirit giving love.

Let's start here:
The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.--Galatians 5:21

The fruit.
Not fruits.  One thing.
Love IS joy, IS peace, IS patience, and all the rest.
All connected, all imparted at the same time from the Spirit.

 And it all comes from love.
God has poured out His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, Whom He has given us.--Romans 5:5

The Spirit is the one Source from which we example all the ways that changed who we once were into someone God now recognizes as His own, remade in His image.
Obedient divine love transforms the tangled mess of our life into the reflection of God Himself.

When God sends His Spirit, He gives us the one thing, the only thing, that tames our wild disarray of sin.
We slept in sin, and in the process made a mess of our life, but when morning came, the Spirit greeted us with the light of new life and love.

Wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.--Ephesians 5:14
...only one thing is needed, and it will not be taken away from her.--Luke 10:42

We should see, when we look in the mirror, not the disheveled head of sin, but the beautifully adorned image of our God.
And that is a good hair day indeed.

Who Really Rises

The sun does not rise.
Just saying.
That big yellow ball on the eastern horizon every morning is not the one moving.
We are.  The earth.  The blue marble.

Now, intellectually, we already know this.  The earth revolves around the sun, not the sun around the earth, but when I look out of the the window at 6AM, I think, "The sun is coming up."
But it isn't.  Instead, I am on the earth, and the part of the earth I occupy is turning to face the sun.  Every day, my patch of earth slowly rotates relative to our stationary sun, then turns during the night away from it.  Our dawn is simply my face turning into the light.

Now, when you think about it, this makes perfect sense.
God made the world to reflect Himself.
He is the sun...constant, glorious and full of light.  We are the earth...vacillating, moving now toward Him, now away. 

You remain the same, and Your years will never end.--Psalm 102:27
I, the Lord, do not change.--Malachi 3:6

God finds delight in us as we seek Him, as we turn from dark to light.
He does not move.
Luckily, that makes Him easy to find.

Arise!

What are we made of?  Blood and bone, of course, but isn't there more?  Carl Sagan thought men made of 'starstuff' and although he was a scientist of sorts, that is hardly a factual explanation.  Still, he wondered what men have always wondered...

What is man that You make so much of him, that You give him so much attention, that You examine him every morning and test him every moment?--Job 7:17-18

What, indeed? 

I know my flesh is fragile, that my life is short, and that I make many mistakes.  Yet, somehow, I know that I matter.  I just can't figure out why.

God, however, tells me not to fret too much about that.

Now we have a poor reflection in a mirror, then we shall see face to face.  Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.--1 Corinthians 13:12

He says that He only knows what I look like.  He only knows all of what I am and what I am to become.  And I am a reflection.  A reflection of Him.

He made me and filled me with Himself.  I don't live very long, but I am made of the same substance that is God.  His glory passes through me and washes over me from the inside out.  I am but a breath, but if I am His, I am all His breath--a long, careful exhale, beautiful in power.

Starstuff, indeed.  The star that rises up bright in an otherwise darkened sky, the star full of fire and light.

Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you.--Isaiah 60:1

Wake Up, Sleeper!

Every night, we look forward to sinking peacefully into sleep, drifting off with relief, unafraid and grateful, expecting to wake with refreshment and renewal. Sleep is a little death, and as we wake from it, we know a daily rising, a triumphant new life.

God made us to need sleep and He did it for a reason. In making daily dying and rising a necessary part of our lives, He teaches something about Himself: for every death, large and small, a waking follows.

Unconsciously, we let go of our life every night when we close our eyes in full expectation that we will open them again. Sleep rarely brings stress or rebellion--it relieves them, but the sleeping and waking pattern God established is harder to apply to other situations in which He also tells us to let go.

Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires.--Galatians 5:24 As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, and God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus.--Ephesians 2:1,6

As we die daily in sleep, so are we to die daily to sin and, eventually, die physically. He has already established the pattern: a waking follows each one, a waking with Him.

As I lay myself down every night to a relieved sleep, confident that I will wake up in the morning renewed, so must I lay down a used-up sinful life to be reborn in Christ and look forward to a final physical death from which I will finally wake up where the sun never sets.

Photo courtesy of Kristen W, Writers' Alley