Sunday, December 4, 2011

Awakenings

Today at church our preacher was Sister Helen Prejean, best known for her book Dead Man Walking. One of the perks of attending a university chapel is that you get amazing guest preachers, and Sister Helen was quite moving. Part of her sermon touched on awakenings, how grace awakens us to God's purposes and plans. It can start with just a nudge--her work as a counselor to death row inmates started as a casual suggestion she be a pen pal with a prisoner--followed by another nudge, and another.

That is how my faith life has seemed to me--a series of awakenings. A chain of nudges. People showing up in my life unexpectedly. Angels stopping by to be entertained unawares. The other day I prayed to be more obedient, and five minutes later I got a phone call from someone who needed my help. Took me half an hour to make the connection. A year ago, it would have taken all day. Maybe I'm a little more awake this year. Maybe I'll be even more awake next year, and it will only take me five minutes to figure out why the phone rang.

I don't know if we're ever fully awake in this lifetime. I imagine that in the coming kingdom we will be astonished by we did not and could not know during our time in this world. All the angels unawares will be revealed to us. All the things we called coincidence. All the wake-up calls--the ones that we heeded, and the ones that we ignored because we wanted to sleep for five more minutes.

6 comments:

Pom Pom said...

Awakening. Such an amazing word.
Wonderful post, Frances!

Gumbo Lily said...

I like this too! I want to be wide awake for His calls.

Tracy said...

Not only wide awake for the things God wants me to see and be obedient to, but wide awake to the ways and means used by Satan and being able to pray against those things immediately rather than 3 weeks down the track.

Amanda said...

Something we just studied in our women's Bible study is a fascinating read on this topic (well, the topic of what we don't know is going on)-- Daniel Ch. 10, especially vs. 11-13. And, thank you for this wonderful post!

magsmcc said...

On this a morning of sunny issues, you cannot know how significant your post is. Another nudge. Awake. With the promise of eternal awake. Amen!

The dB family said...

Awakenings. They are such good things provided we clue in to them. I don't always see them as wake up calls until later either.

Blessings!
Deborah