Wake Up, Sleeper!

Last Tuesday I drove to Dallas and got on my plane to Frankfurt. It was harder coming back this time! Everyone says the second time is the hardest because the initial excitement has worn off and you just miss everybody that much more. I definitely agree. Of course, now that I'm back at the office and doing what we do, I'm so glad I'm here. The one thing that's been killing me is the jet lag! Usually I dont have too much of a problem with it. I just throw myself into routine and my sleep adjusts accordingly. But this time around it's been horrible.

The first night I slept for 17 hours without waking up. Yikes. Next night was pretty normal. Then I couldnt sleep at all so I stayed up through the night. Then I slept 14 hours. Now I'm up writing this at 4:30 in the morning because, you guessed it, I can't sleep! BAH!

One thing I've learned is that in all things, God is speaking. Even if it's just a little murmur. Here's what God's been murmuring to me these past few days:

I think we all go through seasons in our relationship with God. We have days when we have a furious longing to know Him and be known by Him, and we have days where God is just an afterthought. I think my life will be spent trying to make that first bit true for me every day. Right now, the reality is that I sometimes go into these deep spiritual sleeps. That kind of sleep where you sleep so long that you wake up feeling more tired than you did before...the kind where you feel compelled to fall into complete lethargy and the day just sort of floats by. Well, that's where I was at when I came back to Germany, this sort of spiritual lethargy. But still God murmurs. I kept feeling this call to "wake up" that went beyond my jet lagged state. Then, at our staff prayer yesterday, God gave me a verse, Ephesians 5:14. When I looked it up it said:

"Awake, sleeper,

And arise from the dead,

And Christ will shine on you!"

I feel like just reading those words broke my trance. It woke up my soul in a way. If anything, it was God's way of reminding me that even when I fall asleep, He doesn't. He's still there, patiently pursuing me every day.