Awakening

On your way to church services?  I sincerely hope you are.  However, we’re trapped at home due to the weather.  But it doesn’t matter because God’s love and grace is always present.  And even before we received the weather alert I had spent time worshipping and praising God.  During my meditation, I reflected on the legacy of Nelson Mandela and thanked God for our youngest grandson’s 4th birthday this past week.  I also paused to remember those killed during the attack on Pearl Harbor (December 7th), as well as praised God for yesterday’s baptismal service.

Everyday you and I experience celebrations, and challenges; moments of joy, and excitement, as well as profound sadness.   And when it happens, if we are fully awake and aware, our spirits glimpse into the divine, which is truly remarkable and humbling.

At the end of meditation, I stumbled across a poem from Gordon Parks’ distinguished photographer, poet, author, filmmaker and composer from his book Glimpses Toward Infinity.  It is entitled “Awakening.”

My bed hunched under me like a crooked water bird, and I was tasting a silence flavored with salt.
After years of ripening, the need for existence was rolling downward. Shaped like a frowning sword, doubt rocketed in, slashed, then racked me with a question that could only unbare itself with a thousand slippery answers: Why, after wearing yourself out brawling under so many punishing sins, have you left too much undone?  It was half past autumn and time was fluttering off like the petals of a dying rose.  I lay there for another century, a hostage to my own query – Just how much was too much?
Those bloodthirsty hours that had assaulted me along the way had seemed natural enough.  The jagged bites of hunger, the acrid smoke of bigotry, the shiftless dreams all came as they invariably come, one after the other – in their chosen armor.
And I, with my skinny arsenal, had tried to defend my survival.  My own struggle no longer recognized me. I lay there in the past, finished, a false martyr drowning in a sea of things lost.  Unexpectedly, a knock came at my door.
Jolted, I sprang from a dizzying nightmare. Through a haze of red cobwebs fragrant light was invading my room. It was dawn – up early, washing the land, sprinkling my disgruntled house with a scent of honey once more.
Above my bed, swimming mornings’ elaborate air, was the answer my chimera held as unanswerable.  Even the walls were startled when, with the clarity of a star, it spoke:

“You were called into existence to lend a hand to all that is growing as you grew.  Go out and do what you have to do.  Idleness lives too close to death.” 

Dear saints, we were called to do the bidding of our Lord and Savior.  To show the world how to “be” and “do.”  Perhaps like me you have gotten off-course and needed a gentle reminder to finish the work.   As Pastor Steven Furtick recently said, “There is strength in your season.”  So put on the whole armor of God and complete the work because “nothing is impossible with God.”  He will supply all your needs according to His riches in heaven.  So, as you prepare to celebrate the birth of Christ, rejoice in the awakening.  Let us do all for the glory of God, so we can hear our Savior say, “Well done, my good and faithful servant.”

Rejoice, today is our awakening.

God bless you.