By SARAH DAVIS
Sometimes in our everyday waking and breathing lives, we have been lulled to sleep. We are like sleepwalkers in the light of day. We punch the time clocks at our jobs. We stroll through aisles of the fluorescent lighting at Target. We go through the motions of living, lulled by our routines and monotony.
There is science behind it with 95% of our brain activity being beyond our conscious awareness. But there is a danger to it on the level of spiritual and emotional well-being.
There is a low level of complacency we can easily slip into where we just accept whatever we are facing as our lot in life. It’s a tactic of the enemy. Carefully devised and methodical. Strategic in the fact that it is so subtle, it often goes unnoticed. It isn’t cryptic. In fact, the more I think about it, it’s rather apparent. The plan is this: lull them to sleep and convince them that there isn’t more to life.
The enemy’s plan for our lives is threefold, to steal, kill, and destroy. To steal our joy, vitality, energy, peace, and trust. To kill our dreams and the hope that the change we long for will come to pass. To destroy our relationships and our future, because if he can get us to a place of complacency, we remain stuck. We are asleep and unaware of disguised ways he tries to destroy us.
If he can get you to accept whatever it is that you’re facing as just being “the way things are,” then that’s also the way you are going to view circumstances in other people’s lives.
“This apathy I feel, is never going to lift. “
“I am too broken ever to be whole.”
“This addiction will always have control over me.”
“My family will always struggle financially.”
“This relationship can never be mended.”
Like I tell my thirteen-year-old when he is fighting to get up in the morning, and I’ve been to his room five times already, ” just sit up on the side of the bed. Rub the sleep from your eyes. Take a drink of cold water. WAKE UP.”
My dog gets scolded when he searches for food that has been dropped under the table during meals by my two-year-old. It’s not that he’s hungry and it’s not that I don’t expect him to search for food. It’s the noises he makes during his search party that get him scolded. It’s a snorting and slurping sound that you just have to hear it for yourself to understand. My husband looked at his four-month-old white and furry cuteness and named him “Pig,” a self-fulfilling prophesy for his bulldog self. Here’s the point: Don’t be like Pig. Don’t search for scraps beneath the table. You are invited to an abundant feast at the table of abundant life.
“You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows ” Psalm 23:5 (NIV)
FOR FURTHER THOUGHT:
There have times in my life that I have found myself going through the motions of life and struggling to believe that God has more in store for me. There have been times I have settled for existing, rather than seeking the abundant, joy-filled life Jesus died for me to have. Can you relate to this today? Whatever you do, don’t settle for this. Whatever your “this” is. Don’t allow yourself to be lulled to sleep. There is so much more for your one and only life than this low-level lot that you may have accepted. Let’s abort this mission. Let’s accept the invitation we have been given to the table of abundant life.
PRAYER:
Father, thank you for dying so that I can live fully in this life. I pray that you will open my eyes to areas of my life where I have settled for less than your abundance and good plan for my future. Give me the courage to believe and expect more and to live from a place of joy and believing in your goodness. Amen.
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